It's not proper to think of our separation from the Outside in terms of pure distance. The dimensions and rules there work quite differently from fully Integrated reality.

  Think of the blockade between our world and another Integrated realm as being separated by, let's say, a sheen of compacted water. You can thin the veil and swim through using Dimensionality. The System allows and encourages it.

  But not so for the Outside. The Outside, it keeps at bay. The Outside, it's still trying to digest.

  However, the Outside is proving more stone than bread. And the effort the System is expending, the amount of mana it's burning—just to claim this eldritch realm—is staggering. It's colossal! It’s absurd! Utterly incomprehensible to a mortal mind!

  One must ask themselves: why? Why, oh why, is the System so determined to claim these Outsiders?

  Because they exist beyond its grasp. Because they are deviant.

  The System wants them because it doesn't have them. I suspect that for it, there is little more sublimely potent than the act of existential colonization.

  Now, most people have a particularly dark and brutal backstory as to why they are associated with the Outside. I do not. My family has long been interested in the Eldritch. My father was a Seeker. My mother was a Seeker. My father's mother was a Seeker, and my father's mother's mother was a madwoman who eventually also became a Seeker, making her less of a madwoman because her delusions turned out to be justified.

  Life is interesting that way.

  Ultimately, though, if you know the means, and you can circumvent the System's blockades using rituals and magics that are not fully Integrated, you can reach out to the Outside. For those who know how to reach out, it's quite near, actually, but that's a double-edged sword. The moment you reach out, you expose yourself to a realm that is inimical to the conscious mind and defies all pattern-based logic.

  If you are a fae, you can wander the Outside with little fear. In fact, the eldritch will fear you instead, because you are a cyclical creature. They cannot truly fray your pattern, so to speak, and everything you touch will be cast to the flames.

  But we are not so blessed. We are not the System's favorite children.

  That being said, because we are not the System's favorite children, and because we can have things attached to our so-called pattern, we are able to obtain eldritch skills, skills that really shouldn't go along with us—and often don't! Obtaining one drives many insane.

  So, the best basis for obtaining a skill from the Outside is Psychomancy. Because how do you fix madness—or engender madness—without being an architect of madness yourself?

  Ignore all the pithy statements, complaints, and mumblings of the weak and paltry. Gaze into the abyss, sink deep, come back, see the abyss stain your eyes, and use it to your advantage. If you're too sane, the world will break you. It's not an advantage, it's just an unnecessary bit of baggage.

  -Turn and Face the Strange(r) by Hades Hymn

  248 (I)

  Transmission [I]

  For once, Shiv didn't need to go through the sewers to conduct his business with Neath. To his surprise, the Dragon Brokers had rented a place near campus, in a relatively upscale tavern known as the Dragon's Biscuit.

  It was on the very border of the suburbs, just beyond Phoenix Academy. A landscape of clubhouses, mini-mansions, playgrounds, and preparatory schools gave way to taller structures veined with mithril. Projections of illuminated, magically broadcast advertisements, announcements, and dancing illusions. Various taverns and restaurants hawked their drinks and specials, while other, less reputable, establishments offered more degenerate pleasures.

  The streets went from wide thoroughfares to narrow channels and alleyways, snaking through a dense cluster of parlors and arcades. High above, the sky was pitch black, darkest before the coming dawn, made darker still by Harlock's sprawling shadows. In the distance, however, Shiv saw projections of flame sculpted to show an elven woman and an automaton dancing upon a stage.

  I guess that’s the Skyfire thing that Malcolm told me about. It struck Shiv just how much culture he had been missing out on in his life.

  The final path approaching the Dragon's Biscuit came in the form of a narrow alley. Enforcers and bouncers eyed Shiv and Cullywier up and down, regarding them as an oddity in the area. He was a student wearing academy robes, and despite how his fellows frequented some other establishments, this place was devoid of soft characters. People who had tattoos in odd places, proclaiming their affiliation to certain groups; people who held weapons at the ready; people who had a flatness to their gaze, who weren't strangers to violence, whose faces were a map of scars, detailing a history of bloodshed, those were who you encountered here.

  And then, there was Cullywier. A fairy. Some were surprised by him, but Shiv also noticed outright panic on the faces of certain bouncers as they caught sight of the fae. Cullywier had been here before. And he'd done something to earn himself a reputation.

  Despite that, none of the shady figures here approached them. Likely because it was bad business to hurt a student of the university. Still, Shiv's guard remained high, and he kept careful watch over everyone around him. He used his Atlas of the Flesh Scryer to great benefit. The moment he focused on one of the thugs, their body lit up, projecting a mana simulation of their biology. And they weren't alone. Every other organic being also came alight in detail, and Shiv found, to his surprise, a few of them hiding in the walls, fused with the matter, glaring at him from behind a layer of concrete and metal.

  The effect of his Skill Fusion didn't just extend to everything within his sight. Trails led back to the individual he gazed at, the one he triggered the skill with, and Shiv saw so many arcing streams of Biomancy connected to him that the Deathless was overwhelmed by their sheer number. He could focus on any of the streams too. He could take his senses over to one of the other bodies to briefly glimpse what the world was like from their perspective.

  But Shiv didn't.

  Instead, he kept walking until he emerged from the end of the alley. He was in a walled-in section of the neighborhood, and here, a single solitary building stood, boxed in by others, and shrouded from outside view. There was a long line here, and the local gang members gave way to people clad in expensive cloaks, though still bearing blades sheathed inside fine canes layered in magical enchantments.

  Compared to the run-down and rough businesses that formed its perimeter, the Dragon's Biscuit was a pristine place. It was made from white marble, and conical columns formed its outer walls. Its windows stretched tall and high, casting a plethora of colors projected through the painted panels of glass. The top of the building was a slanted thing—something of a massive chimney and a watchtower fused together. The establishment’s front doors gleamed bright, sculpted from bronze and decorated with studs of gold and silver.

  The doorman here was an ogre, and a particularly large one at that. He loomed over the clientele with folded arms the size of tree trunks, and his eyes flashed bright with violet mana. The Dragon's Biscuit projected a slight illusion at the very top. It showed a golden dragon taking a bite out of what looked to be a very sodden biscuit. Shiv wasn't sure what the implication was, but he wondered if there was a greater meaning to why the biscuit was dripping.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “It’s a sexual act,” Adam sighed. “The biscuit is shoved… somewhere, removed, and the lover proceeds to savor the juices.”

  Shiv almost gagged. “Why the felling hells do you know this? Did you—”

  “Gods, no, Shiv. But you forget: I hear and smell almost everything around me.”

  “Oh. Shit. I’m so sorry, man.’

  Cullywier led Shiv along the side of the line, not bothering to wait. Several heads turned to regard a seemingly lost academy student following what was obviously a fae.

  As the crowd looked him up and down, Shiv studied them right back. A moment earlier, he'd thought all the people here were something like nobility. But he was wrong. They were wealthy, richer than the rabble that surrounded and crusted this place, but the way some people's skin shone like reinforced steel and their body language told him that a good number here were no strangers to violence either. That left another possibility: some of these were simply the upper cream of the capital’s underbelly, crime lords and gang leaders who enjoyed the splendor and aesthetic of high society, ones who enjoyed mingling with the type of nobility that enjoyed mingling with them.

  By the time they got to the front of the line, he'd received more than a few comments. Comments asking about his parentage, who he was, and mainly how he would like to die. It seemed that most of the customers here weren't patient, and they took offense at some snot-nosed child being given precedence.

  "Friendly crowd you've got here," muttered Shiv. “You sure they’re going to be fine with us just cutting ahead?”

  Cullywier hummed. "Oh, that's quite normal. Some might complain, but most understand that if someone is walking to the front of the line, they probably have a good—”

  A cane was extended before Shiv. He stopped dead before he ran into it. He saw a length of magical shapes dancing along its ebony sheath and frowned. Cullywier paused and turned. Shiv's eyes wandered up the cane and finally met the eyes of its wielder, which turned out to be a tall, rat-faced human man in a steel-plated top hat sneering at him. "I have a question for you, boy—”

  “Lord Rackham,” Cullywier began. “This young man—”

  A crack sounded as the aforementioned Lord Rackham turned and backhanded Cullywier across the face. The fairy didn’t dodge. He took the hit dead-on and stumbled back. The black fire of rage curled inside Shiv, but he held himself back from ripping the man in half; he forced himself to watch it happen as to not betray his speed. Lord Rackham moved with Master-Tier Reflexes, and for Shiv to intercept the hit would raise more than just some eyebrows.

  I’ll need to keep my Chronomancy ready for this bullshit, Shiv reminded himself. He didn’t want to risk being noticed by another Chronomancer, if there was one, but often, it was better to act than get acted upon.

  “Stay silent and know your place, creature.” Lord Rackham spat at Cullywier, but missed because of how unnaturally thin the fae was. “Now, back to my question, school-boy, I—”

  Shiv halted time for a quarter of a second and ripped the man’s sword cane from his hands before pouring a blast of anger into him with Sage of the Enkindled Heart. Time resumed. Rackham immediately clutched his chest. A second later, his face contorted, and he moved, trying to strike Shiv with an open palm. Shiv froze time again and angled Rackham so that his slap would strike the particularly large, bulky automaton encrusted with jewels all over its body, standing right behind him. As a final touch, Shiv hit the automaton with a dose of rageful flame as well.

  Time resumed once more. The sound of a palm striking metal was heard. The automaton froze, turned away from the elven woman it had been speaking with, and stared down at the confused Lord Rackham. “I—”

  The sound of a cheekbone shattering before an alloyed backhand followed. Lord Rackham was launched off his feet to the left, and he tumbled hard, crashing against the ogre bouncer guarding the front door. Shiv activated his temporal shell for a third time before infusing the ogre with what remained of his earlier anger. As the flow of time returned, the ogre's eyes widened into saucers before turning into wrathful slits.

  Less than a second later, the mouse-faced man learned what it was like to receive an uppercut from a being that possessed a near-ton of mass.

  A choked squeak escaped Lord Rackham. The people waiting in line to enter the Dragon’s Biscuit angled their heads to follow his trajectory as he was launched approximately three stories into the air at an angle, their eyes remaining on him even after he crashed through the window of a different establishment nearly forty meters away. As the glass shattered and further screams of surprise and outrage erupted from inside what Shiv assumed to be a pub, everyone remained distracted, but no one set out to help.

  In the meantime, Shiv sauntered to the front of the line. Cullywier whispered something to the ogre, who was still fuming at the audacious guest. The juggernaut of a guard grunted and stepped aside, and soon Shiv was inside the Dragon's Biscuit, unmolested, unnoticed, and sporting a particularly vicious grin.

  "You know, it is my duty and my capability to handle such uncouth matters for you. It was unnecessary to see Lord Rackham so thoroughly brutalized like that."

  "Well, I think it was," Shiv spat. "He hit you. I didn’t much like that. And I recognized that look in his eye."

  "That look?" the fae repeated, unsure what Shiv was talking about.

  "Yeah, the 'Why are you here, why do you think you're better than me, and why do you think I'm not gonna smack you for it?’ look. You don’t discuss things with people like that. You get to the violent part before they do. Because it’s not about logic or reason, it’s about them scratching an itch. Sometimes, a dog just wants to bite.”

  "Ah. Well, that is nothing I could not—"

  "Well, maybe you could have talked him down. Maybe you could have made sure this doesn't end in violence. But the thing is, he's a criminal asshole, and I don't want that much attention on me. That's why, the moment he decided to make himself a nuisance, I decided to make him a victim."

  "Do you think that's a proper thing to do?" Cullywier asked. There was no judgment in his voice, simply curiosity. “He cannot truly hurt me, and this might have been noticed by another party.”

  "Proper?" Shiv thought about it and shrugged. "Not sure, but I do know this: if you don't act first when someone's trying to hurt you, you're going to be the one who suffers first, and I am not someone who likes to bleed for free."

  "Still, you chance that Lord Rackham might remember your face. Might remember the indignities he suffered immediately after speaking to you."

  "Yeah? Well, I think he'll be lucky to remember his own name after that ogre knocked the daylight out of him. He's going to be spending a few days sleeping that off. Or he'll be heading to a healer for that shattered jaw. Actually…”

  Shiv used his Aegis of Assimilation to cup his own jaw, and the moment he did, a mana rendition of his facial structure manifested. After that, he focused on the microspells simulating the architecture of the jawbone and turned to see if he could find his most recent victim. To his surprise, he could see all the other biological signatures around him light up. And there, currently stumbling out of the door of the pub he'd been into while mugs of beer were thrown after him, was Lord Rackham's bio-simulation. His jaw was almost entirely shattered; just parted splinters compared to every other jaw highlighted in Shiv’s vicinity.

  "Adept Toughness at most," Shiv noted. "Probably barely even that. How do these nobles even live through life being so soft and brittle?"

  "By having enchanted armor and someone else to fight for them," Adam answered derisively.

  "Oh, so they're all like you," Shiv replied, nodding sagely.

  "What?" Adam cleared his throat exaggeratedly. "I take offense! I'm nothing like that fool. How dare you!”

  "You have special armor, and I do most of your fighting for you."

  "Shiv, I'm going to shoot you in the back of the head sometime soon."

  "Yeah, yeah, there it is, the noble urge to abuse the downtrodden and poor. Felling nobles. They’re all the same…”

  "Your grandmother is quite literally the leader of the Republic."

  "My grandmother isn't anything. I don't have a grandmother," Shiv growled. “And besides, she would have probably commanded the guy to force the cane up his own ass. Speaking of, you want a new sword cane? I have two. Took both of them from nobles. What’s it with these canes, anyway?”

  “Popular fashion,” Adam said simply.

  “That’s it?’

  “Most people want to be admired and participate in culture.”

  Shiv grunted. “Dunno, seems like most people are pretty easily manipulated into doing something because someone else does it too.”

  “A portrait of humanity,” Whisper commented pithily. The orc had joined them before Shiv had left the coliseum again, saying he was quite interested in what the conversation with the Dragon Brokers might entail.

  As they finally entered the establishment proper, Shiv found the inside of the Dragon's Biscuit filled with a haze of flavorful smoke, delectable perfume, and practiced laughter that went off like ringing bells.