You will learn the wrong lessons from life. This is not a condemnation; it is just how things progress.

  As Pathbearers, we develop delusions as to why we prevail and succeed when so many others have fallen. Many of us subconsciously know the truth, or, even if we do understand the truth, refuse to face it, because reality is a thing that mauls the spirit. So we say that we were stronger, we were unique, we saw clearly. We were wiser and smarter, anything that makes us more special.

  The System loves this hubris. The System rewards it. And so we sink deeper into our mistakes. And there, so many drown before they ever reach the cusp of being a Hero. Masters die when their mistakes never get remedied, and the most common mistakes I found among Masters who dedicate themselves to my favorite skill–the skill of Stealth—is the assumption that they are enough by themselves.

  The System does indeed build monuments to the individual, but the individual is not something that exists in a vacuum. There will come a time when your own skills are limited, where your own experiences prove to be more detrimental than beneficial, and, more importantly, where a softer touch or a more brutal hand might serve your objectives better than your own expertise.

  And with that comes the great test for those who wish to operate alone and call the shadows their sanctuary. Trust. Trust in another. Trust that someone else can see the job done. Pathbearers will greet many enemies. Trust is a rare thing, something that will see them struck down if they are careless. And trust can be used against you. Love can be used against you. But to stand alone means you will eventually die alone.

  It is practically fated. You will encounter more Pathbearers, and someday you will face someone who has the right skills to oppose your own. Those you are not meant to fight, you will either have to avoid or send someone else to deal with them.

  Be honest with yourself, and eventually learn this lesson: you must understand how to trust, who to trust, and how you should wield this trust. You need to find someone to rely on. You need something that operates beyond yourself. Otherwise, you are an island, and islands always get claimed in the end.

  -Valor Thann

  237 (I)

  Cover-Up

  In the aftermath, there was nothing in the world, nothing at all: no light, no darkness. There was only Shiv and a glowing mound of pristine, white dough. Strangely, he could feel the dough. He could feel it as if it were a part of his body, a limb that had been severed from him, but still remained connected through inexplicable means.

  The Deathless tried to draw in a breath, but no air flowed through him. Yet he didn't choke, he didn't suffocate. This was a place devoid of atmosphere, devoid of oxygen, but it was bathed in vitality, in the translucent essence of Psychomancy, in an orange mana that began to suffuse deeper, igniting the dough from within.

  And as the dough came alight, shining brilliantly like a new dawn before Shiv, he heard twin voices call out from the inner depths of the salt-white substance: "Who? Who is out there? Where am I? Who am I?" Velly's voice was unmistakable, but it was soon joined by another.

  "Have I fallen? Have I finally crossed that final threshold into your embrace?" Nornsong's voice sounded somehow broken, and the sorrow lingering inside her was in full blossom. Shiv grimaced, and once more, he had to remind himself that these were just echoes. But by the System, they were loud echoes. He could feel them, feel their wretched emotions, feel that final hit of fear and anguish that followed them just before they crossed the veil into death.

  The Sage of the Enkindled Heart allowed him greater sympathy than ever. But in some ways, the skill was double-edged. Tasting another's existential hollowness and misery was not something Shiv wanted to do often.

  "Call out to them," the Fae-Knight’s voice sounded from Shiv's sigil. Shiv looked down in surprise, but it soon diminished as he remembered how interconnected skills were to their users. He didn't truly possess the skill himself; it was simply granted to him by the fae. How did these mechanics work? What limitations were there?

  But it was clear that the Knight of the Summer Court was still bound to the skill and could be called upon by Shiv at any moment. More importantly, though, it might allow him to spy and scry on things through Shiv as well. He took note of that. Might need to ask Cullywier how to blind or reduce the senses from his side, Shiv thought to himself.

  "Nornsong?" Shiv said aloud. "Can you hear me?"

  A brief silence followed, but there was a shift in the air. A billowing pulse of translucent mana washed over Shiv. It was like a pathway connecting him to the dough, and he felt the presence of both Nornsong and Velly's shattered minds stronger than ever before.

  "Who are you?" Velly said. There was a lingering trace of fear and agitation in his voice. Nornsong didn't speak, but her anxiety was heightened all the same. For a few echoes, they reacted much as actual people did.

  "I’m, uh… You might’ve known me as Marcus Unblood earlier. The truth is a bit more complicated than that…"

  "Marcus?" Velly repeated. "I don't know any… Wait… The commis? My mind is… I can't… Why do I think I know you when I can't remember anything?"

  "A common side effect," the Post-Anointed One declared. "Not all of the mind survives, and as I told you earlier, you drained a substantial amount of vitality from these two echoes. Now they are only fractions of themselves. You must be careful what you say to them. If you agitate them too much, we will need to find other constructs to replace them."

  "Constructs?" Shiv said, his patience thinning. "Is that what we're calling the dead people now?"

  "It is what we're calling the resources I must devote to fielding the skill? Yes, indeed it is," the fae said with an arrogant huff. "Just because you can awaken a piece of bread does not mean it understands what it is. You need intelligence for intelligence. Nothing comes from nothing, Deathless."

  "Have we fallen?" Velly suddenly asked. "Have I gone beyond the threshold? Are you the end? Are you Harlock, waiting to carry us across the Great Night’s End?" Velly sounded altogether confused. "Have you come to guide us to that final threshold within your embrace, to your kingdom of glory?"

  Shiv didn't know nearly enough about religious theology, but based on what he experienced while facing the Ascendants, he sincerely doubted they had any kind of kingdom of glory that devoted believers entered after death. Shiv was almost about to tell them the truth on reflex, but then his Sage of the Enkindled Heart Skill triggered, and he thought twice about the burdens and perils of honesty.

  Sage of the Enkindled Heart: If you tell them the truth, there is a pretty good chance that their minds will shatter. Take a moment. You see how confused they are? How bad their memories are? How fragile the Psychomancy seems?

  He did as the skill suggested and winced. There was a brittleness in the bread. There was a fragility there that told him, if he agitated or struck too much emotional discord into either Velly or Nornsong, there wouldn't be anything left in their minds. They would simply come undone and cease to be.

  "Uh, yeah," Shiv said, going along with Velly's assumptions. "This is Harlock the Midnight speaking. You're in… heaven. Bread heaven. There’s some, uh, bread… stuff… happening right now.”

  Sage of the Enkindled Heart: I also would like to remind you that I am not an Acting Skill. Please do not use me for that.

  But despite his shitty acting, it seemed that his words delivered a dose of comfort to both Velly and Nornsong. “Oh, how I have yearned for this moment,” the echo of the elf whisperer. “I have prayed for all I've sinned, for all the wrongs I've committed. I thought I would forever be denied that final empyrean paradise.” Nornsong almost began sobbing, and that made Shiv feel like absolute shit. He was taking advantage of someone else's faith, of people that, in his opinion, really hadn't deserved to— "I wish I didn't murder my sister to claim my bloodline inheritance."

  Shiv paused. Okay, maybe I didn't know these people very well. But even if Nornsong is a sister-murderer admitting the worst of her misdeeds to someone she thinks is her god, that doesn’t mean—

  "And though I have devoted myself to you, O Midnight, I cannot shake the memory of my true unworthiness, of the worst of my transgressions. I cannot forget the girl I murdered that night when I broke into the Seasworn Vault in Atlantis. I know I am not supposed to mourn the death of a mermaid’s spawn, but I didn’t mean… The blade I drove into her to silence her was… She didn’t need to die.”

  Shiv's expression turned deadpan. Okay. I really don't feel bad about lying to her anymore. Maybe Velly, but—Actually, wait, Velly was also perfectly fine serving Weaveress eggs as food, and he kidnapped the fairies from their bread forest or whatever. I almost forgot about that whole thing. Kind of wondering why I'm even bothering with this whole spiel… But it would make me look stupid in front of the bread man to pull out now. No way forward other than through, I guess.

  As the warm mana of the fae skill's magic spread across the entirety of the dough, two shapes began to writhe from both ends. One writhed and twisted, crawling out from the dense mound of soft and malleable white, arising to seem like a malformed version of the raptor chef. The other lingered on the ground behind him, uncurling from a mound of unshaped dough. Nornsong’s limbs were still ropy and unformed, but the vagueness of an elf could be seen if one truly squinted.

  Within both their chests was a core, a core of emotional resonance, but also a core filled by the ruby-red glow of vitality, further encircled by a sphere of protective Psychomancy. It seemed that what was left of Nornsong and Velly's minds was deposited into each half of the dough. The vitality, ensuring their enduring existence, was slowly flickering away, but it didn't drain nearly as fast as Shiv's vitality golems did.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Both of the bread-formed chefs looked at the Deathless, and they looked upon him with great confusion.

  "Forgive me, Harlock," Velly said, kneeling first. "But you do not resemble any form you have taken in scripture or popular depiction."

  “I uh…” Shiv racked his brain. “Yeah, you know, that's the point of being Harlock the Midnight. You want to surprise people. Stealth is sometimes also stealth when it's a disguise."

  Deception 38 > 39

  "By the Laughing Radiance, you might be the worst liar I have ever encountered," the Fae-Knight said, gasping with disbelief. When he spoke, however, neither Velly nor Nornsong reacted. They couldn't hear him.

  "Yeah, well, I'm doing what I can, asshole. I don't want them to go insane. Wait, did you have to convince everyone you put in bread to follow your orders? I thought this was supposed to be some kind of awakening skill."

  "And what do you think awakening is?" the Fae-Knight said with a haughty snarl. "It is not a Domination Skill or a Mind-Control Skill. This has nothing to do with your strange Patternist Psychomancy; this has everything to do with making your new bread constructs do your bidding of their own desire before they are fully expended.”

  "And so what? You need to gaslight everyone you kill before you infuse them into the bread and ingredients with that heart every time?"

  "Of course!" the Faebread nearly shouted back. "It is a skill where you manage to twist and convince another using your words. Not everything is simply an act of brutality, you foolish, oversized—" The fairy caught himself. “It's simple, Deathless. You must go along with what they believe to convince them to do anything you want.”

  Shiv really didn't like the sound of that. “So, like, everyone you've put in bread before, were they all like this?”

  "Well, they were confused as well and scattered. The echoes don't last, but every human has a few specific desires that are usually aligned. And the many Fairwalkers who fail to make it out of my land after trespassing against the Court serve as an ample supply of human resources to feed this skill." The Anointed Knight laughed. "It really isn't that hard. The dead are desperate. That is what I have discovered. You Patternists are tragically pitiful. You always wait too long—till you have no more time nor future before you start seeking true joy or satisfaction—till you actually face your regrets and sorrows. And the desperate are easy to convince into service.”

  “That’s… kinda fucked up,” Shiv muttered. Suddenly, he was having mixed feelings about this skill. It might let him infuse life and activity into ingredients, but if he had to murder, harvest soul-traces from his victims using a messed-up heart-thing, and then jam those lingering remnants into a food item…

  Shiv wasn’t soft by any measure, but some things felt a little far, even for him. Maybe if I just use this skill on bad people or something…

  "O Divine Lord of Midnight! I beg your forgiveness if my following question seems impudent, but…" Nornsong lifted her head, and the dough that composed her new body receded into itself. She looked just as she was before. But still, she was undressed. Mainly because she was covered in little more than grease, bread crumbs, and cooking oil when she died. A foolish thing based on the assumption that the fae bread couldn't see her that way. "Why are we made of dough? And why does it feel so strange to be here? There is a great deal I cannot remember." There was a look of great uncertainty on her face. "Forgive me, O Midnight. I didn't mean to overstep."

  Shiv reluctantly took advantage of her apprehension. "It’s, uh, fine, devoted… faithful. I understand you have a lot of questions. It's just a normal part of being dead, you know. There's like a layer of final service before you can really cross over into true heaven." Shiv cringed with every word, and from what he could feel using his Sage, the Anointed One was cringing along with him.

  "Just how bad are your Social Skills?" the fae hissed.

  “Hey, my Psychology-Berserk Skill Fusion jacked your shit up.”

  "That has nothing to do with a social skill; that is purely your ability to read and peer into another person's psyche. No wonder you are performing so poorly. Have you convinced anyone of anything diplomatically in your life?"

  "I've intimidated people before," Shiv said defensively.

  "Intimidated? This is not about intimidation; this is about luring bees to honey. You need to be sweet, Deathless. You need to be careful. You need to convince the mind. If you force the mind, it will break. My word, my Laughing Radiance, you are truly a monster to the bone—ah, forgive me, I get frustrated when I see… inefficiency."

  "That's okay, Toasty. I'll forgive you. Maybe only after I slam you against the bars a few more times, but I'll forgive you."

  The fae shuddered.

  Shiv continued speaking with the bread-chefs. "So… Uh, you guys passed the test. You're going to Heaven!" Shiv declared. "But before that, there's one final thing I want you to do. It's like a commemorative thing for how you've lived your life. You're adventuring chefs, and your cooking is pretty awesome."

  “Pretty awesome,” Velly said, taken aback.

  “Uh, shi—I mean, that’s what the—the people say these days, right?” Shiv tried to remember how Harlock spoke during their brief encounter. The Ascendant was one of few words and absolutely didn't sound like Shiv did right now. But who was to say what Harlock’s personality was actually like?

  I really should have paid more attention to theology, Shiv thought to himself. Fucking War Priest throwing me out of that church—it's not my fault that I don't know anything!

  But even with Shiv's absolutely atrocious acting, both of the fallen remnants accepted his words. They kneeled, lowering their heads before him.

  "We will do as you command, Harlock. It will be our honor to serve you a final course," Velly said, looking at his hands and slowly balling them into fists. "We will be willing to offer ourselves as the final course unto you as well, for the glory of the Republic. Simply speak your will, and I will do everything within my power to see it done.”

  "For the glory of the Republic," Nornsong echoed.

  Shiv wondered if either of the two was this loyal in life. He didn't know them very well at all, but something told him that the bits of Nornsong's personality might have ended up inside the head chef's mind as well. They were both a little too similar to each other when it came to degrees of faithfulness.

  The Fae-Knight chuckled darkly. "But even if you are crippled socially, it is clear that you don't need to have that high an aptitude to compel them to service. As I told you before, the dead are desperate, the dead are lost, and with a few properly placed words, the dead are yours to awaken, to use, and infuse into bread."

  Shiv really didn't know how to reply to that. This entire endeavor was beginning to feel more and more questionable. Suddenly, the world around Shiv began to tremble. Everything rippled like the surface of a disturbed lake, and the orange matter spilling out from both Velly and Nornsong's new bread-forged bodies formed an aura around them.

  Everything burst apart, and Shiv found himself back in his original body. His skill sigils were flaring bright on the back of his hand, and with the final splash of mana, he found himself standing before two newly shaped forms. Nornsong and Velly had rejoined him in the world. They looked as he remembered them, both of them examining themselves and looking around the kitchen.

  Finally, they turned and noticed the Fae-Knight standing in his cage. Shiv tasted a surge of animosity coming from both the chefs, but he cleared his throat and drew their attention back to him.

  "Welcome," Shiv said, swallowing as he tried to keep his bullshit train going, "back to your kitchen. I had this place shaped to give you that final trial of, uh, pre-heaven."

  "Of course, Deepest Midnight," Velly said, bowing his head. "We will do anything you ask.”

  “Anything," Nornsong repeated.

  Adam leaned in next to Shiv, and he asked with a voice barely louder than a whisper, "Shiv, what did you just do? Why do they think you're Harlock the Midnight?"

  "I'll tell you in a minute," Shiv said through clenched teeth. He regarded the two bread beings before him and decided to set a few things straight: "Ignore the Faebread for now. He's been defeated and caged by the Republic's glorious justice."

  “I am undone,” the Fae-Knight said with as much enthusiasm as a parent forced to listen to their child go through faith choir after the eighteenth false start.

  Despite Shiv's rambling awkwardness, both Velly and Nornsong accepted his words with resolute bows. Shiv also caught the fairy rolling his eyes, but the eye roll froze halfway through as he realized Shiv had seen it. Suddenly, he looked down at the ground and re-assumed the role of pensive prisoner.

  "Alright, the first thing I need you to do is…" Shiv gave Nornsong and Velly a look-over. "Felling hells, we’re going to need to find you some clothes. But before that, I need to… To see if you two can be baked.”

  Both of the chefs snapped to attention and betrayed no hint of fear.

  Velly held his head high and stood tall. "Of course, great Harlock.” Yet, suddenly, the lizard chef was unmoving. He seemed lost for a moment.

  "Is there something wrong?" Shiv asked as his own worries rose. Would this be the moment where they realized he was full of shit?

  "Forgive me, O Deepest Midnight," Velly declared, "but I—" And the tension in the room grew. "I don't quite recall how bread is prepared."

  Shiv blinked. "You don't?"

  “Neither do I,” Nornsong said dreamily. The left part of her dough-ass promptly fell off and landed on the carpeted floor.

  “Well, that’s a scene that’s going to come back to me in a nightmare at some point,” Adam muttered from behind Shiv.

  "The awakened are made from partial remnants and echoes," the Fae-Knight explained from his timeout cage. "They often need direct guidance and commandments. They do not possess their original skills either. Understand that you still must be the one that judges them, that leads them. They do not have specific knowledge, only bits and fragments of who they were. The deciding hand must still be you. You must command them to act!”

  Shiv gritted his teeth. It felt weird ordering a spiritual echo harvested from a dead person you knew to cook itself. And then you had to actually walk it through cooking itself. But Shiv's life was nothing but weird by this point. And besides, this might be a workaround for the Curse that's currently keeping my Cooking Skill crippled.

  Drawing in a breath, Shiv began navigating the moral and ethical ambiguities of the current situation as best he could.

  "Well, alright, Velly, so I, Harlock the Midnight, happen to remember how to make bread."

  "That is wondrous, O Deepest Midnight," Velly said. His voice briefly became monotone, and his gaze lost focus.

  Like some kind of damaged automaton, Shiv thought.

  "That is wondrous, Deepest Midnight," Nornsong echoed. She wasn’t much more animated.

  Yep, Shiv thought to himself. Parts of them are definitely intermingled.

  "Okay, so here's what you're going to do."

  Adam tugged on Shiv's arm once more: "Shiv, what are you doing?”

  “Gonna find out if I can make bread to make itself.”

  The Gate Lord’s eyes grew wide. “They’re people, Shiv.”

  "Yeah, well, the customers downstairs still need to eat, right? Otherwise, they'll come in to find out what’s taking so long." The look on Adam’s face got ever more incredulous. Shiv shot the bread-chefs a look, then turned back to Adam. "Would it help if I told you that these people are not really themselves anymore? Just like fragments?"

  Adam looked extremely uncomfortable. “But… It still seems…”

  "Well, I feel the same way, but, uh, you know, I—I just—

  "You want to use them as ingredients and to bypass the Curse?" Adam asked.

  "Yeah, something like that," Shiv admitted with a slight hint of shame.

  Deep struggle played across Adam's features, but ultimately, he just sighed. "Well, let's see if we can make these bread people bake themselves."

  Book 5 of Path of the Deathless is fully written and available on ! Book 6 is ongoing. (Over 400,000 Words Advanced). Current release schedule is 1-2 full chapters/5,000-10,000 words daily.

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