243 (II)

  Insight [I]

  The rest of the group started walking, and Maxime picked up the pace. They moved to the southwest corner of the room, and Shiv found a series of patients who were no longer struggling quite as fiercely but still moaned, still quivered in their cots. They had yellow bands on their arms, and Shiv noticed how the ground was lined in golden tape as well.

  "Green is stable, yellow is manageable, red is emergency, black is dead," Maxime explained over her shoulder.

  She guided Shiv to one of the afflicted. It was a goblin whose body was degenerating from the inside. Shiv could see the gleam of mithril spreading through the goblin's veins, and her complexion went from a deep green to a near pale silver. On top of that, she radiated bright mana. Every bit of unattuned and attuned magic infused within her being was magnified.

  "Water," she whispered hoarsely. "Need—need water…"

  Maxime traced the shape of a triangle in the air. All around Shiv, magic bloomed. Geometric patterns danced on top of the patients, creating a biomantic simulacrum of their bodies. The mana simulations hung over each of the patients like storm clouds, and Shiv could see the micro spells there twisting and twitching, shifting with every passing second. More importantly, with his experiences isolating blood from the entire architecture, he could tell there was something there, something compromising the streams of ichor flowing through the patients’ bodies.

  One of the mana simulations flashed red, and Shiv saw the core of the simulation turn into a chunk of silver.

  "CRYSTALLIZING! HE'S... CRYSTALLIZING!" the resident in charge of the patient cried. "I NEED MORE MANA RESISTANCE POTIONS RIGHT NOW! WE NEED IT NOW, NOW! MEDICS! GO! GO!”

  There was a flurry of motion, and Shiv saw students wearing his robes sprint toward the middle of the room. They turned down a hallway and crashed into a large automaton carrying two crates of Mag-Res Potions. “HERE!” the automaton bellowed. “Delivery for Red! Moving to Red!”

  And just then, another two residents responded the same way. Across the room, Shiv could hear shouts for mana potions, anything to break up the spread of the calcification.

  "Marcus! Marcus, focus," Maxime called out to him.

  Shiv flinched. "Yeah, got it."

  "Help me hold her down," Maxime said. And suddenly Shiv noticed the patient in front of him was also beginning to spasm. The goblin's eyes were bulging and bloodshot. She started clawing at her neck.

  "Water, water, so dry," the goblin croaked.

  Shiv looked at Maxime. "Should we give her some—"

  "No," Maxime cut him off. "Her throat's on the verge of swelling up, BP is… oh, that’s bad, her muscles are tensing up. Just keep her still. Tell me if her pupils dilate."

  Shiv laid his hands upon the patient, who thrashed against him weakly. There was barely enough strength left in that little body to even nudge a feather. The twins who were with him joined in, holding down the girl's legs. Meanwhile, Maxime did what she could. She concentrated the bulk of her Biomancy around the goblin's chest and focused. "Alright, I can't really stop the spread of the mithril, but what we can do is waste its time. I'm extending the arterial pathways—creating new architecture. If you will observe," she said, licking her lips as a look of strain crept over her, "I'm going to make sure that the mithril can’t get to the heart that fast. Give her some more time until we can give her a hit of mag-res potion.”

  “I don’t think I ever heard people drinking Magical Resistance potions before,” Shiv commented.

  “It’s not common. It doesn’t really let you gain any benefits of the skill. It just messes your internal mana flow up a bit—doesn’t even stop your skills from functioning. But it does interrupt rapid crystallization enough that we can find and extract the seed fragments inside them.”

  And Shiv used his Aegis of Assimilation to study what she was doing. True to her word, she was growing new traffic from within the body. She formed new blood vessels ahead of the spreading mithril, and as it crept along, she severed the previous veins leading over to the heart.

  "Quite ingenious," Helix commented, "but ultimately this is increasing her burden. She's going to have to serve as secondary capacity for the heart now. If she isolates it entirely, then she's going to have to filter the blood and move the nutrition across. Furthermore, she's going to have to keep the brain active, so the rest of the body manages to sustain itself. Very, very difficult. Have you any observations, vampire?"

  Shiv realized Helix was feeling competitive. Tulveg, meanwhile, simply hummed. "No, I am not a dedicated Biomancer. I cede to your expertise.”

  "What?" Helix replied, sounding aghast.

  "My specializations were in Shapeshifting and Chronomancy. I used my Biomancy solely for offense and infiltration. I cared little for what I did to the body. It was a surprising outcome when I attained my Onctomancy skill, and when my Psychomancy, Chronomancy, and Biomancy fused together. It proved to be of great benefit. Biomancy alone held little interest for me.”

  "Outrageous!" Helix cried aloud. "This, this is. Insul, he's..."

  Shiv laughed inside. “Oh, so he's a little bit like me, just swinging his Biomancy around and breaking shit.”

  Tulveg cringed. "I do not ‘swing my Biomancy around.’ I simply wield it in a form that is most befitting of one who possesses a Lineage Core. I care little for what happens to my body. I will simply regenerate.”

  “You both make me sick,” Helix moaned. “As for this goblin… Her demise might have been delayed, but, like all the patients here, it seems that her fate is sealed."

  And Shiv watched as the mithril slowly crept through the goblin's body. She became even more silvery, even more translucent. Her eyes turned bloodshot. She drew in a sharp breath, and Shiv had to double his efforts holding her down. Her powerlessness faded, and a sudden burst of adrenaline-fueled strength flooded her body.

  "Water!" she nearly screamed.

  "Eyes are dilating! Blood vessels are expanding!" Shiv announced.

  "Shit!" Maxime cried. "Malcolm! Malcolm! Where the hells is he?" She looked around, but the automaton was absent. She shook her head and snarled. "Don't have time for that. I'm going to need you to make an incision."

  Shiv's eyes went wide as she handed him a knife. It was a shiny thing, bright but brittle, meant to cut, yet not made for violence. It was such a slight thing in his hands.

  Maxime ripped open the goblin's hospital gown. "Along the chest, expose the heart."

  "Stormhalt, what the felling shit are you doing?" Hal cried out from the side.

  "Only thing I can. I don't have the skill or reaction time to start filtering blood through the crystallizing core. It's going to start forming a nest soon.”

  Hal paled. “That's…”

  “If she dies, if she dies, it's on me,” Maxime cried back. "But if I don't do anything, she dies anyway, and that's also on me!"

  The senior resident looked overwhelmed. “Fine. Do it. We’re moving her back to red if she doesn't bite it. Someone shit the bed putting her here. She’s not a slow-crystallizer at all.”

  As Shiv gripped the scalpel, something occurred to him. He had Deepest Edge. It was his only true Weapon Proficiency skill, and anything he used that was a knife had its cuts travel all the way through.

  "Oh shit, if I slice into her, it's going to split her heart clean in half.”

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  "Deepest Edge?" Adam guessed. He knew Shiv all too well.

  “Yeah, I think I'm going to need to open up her body using my Biomancy instead.”

  “I'm not sure if that's a good idea, Shiv. The mithril in her body will mess with your Biomancy.”

  “Shit! You're right… I can't dip my mana into her for long. I need to…”

  "Welcome to medical treatments in Biomancy," Helix said, chuckling. "Well, it is always a learning lesson."

  "Shut the fuck up and try to think of something to help me," Shiv snapped.

  “Use your mind, Insul,” the orc chided. “You already have an easy solution. It pains me to say this, but consider what your Biomancy can do even without deeper knowledge.”

  Shiv considered that, and he immediately understood what the orc was getting at. He couldn't simply wave away her injuries with his Woundeater ability due to the mithril and the eyes on him, but he could work around these issues using a combination of his powers. Breathing out slowly, he first used his Biomancy and cut a gouge into his own chest. Blood seeped down along the insides of his healer's robe, but he healed himself instantly and then used his Chronomancy field in tandem with his Biomancy to deliver the treating stroke.

  Time went still for a half-second. Shiv slammed a mana hydra against the patient and carried the cut that once lined his body over upon hers. Her chest split open. He made a cutting motion, hiding what he had just done as time resumed.

  Deception 43 > 47

  Maxime's eyes widened as the opening suddenly appeared before her. A deluge of Deception levels flooded into Shiv, and he felt himself near the precipice of another Skill Evolution.

  She did a double-take, then looked up at Marcus. "Well, that's a clean and deep cut. You got through the sternum, too, in one stroke…"

  A bead of sweat ran down Shiv's forehead. "Is that bad?"

  "No, it's... Frankly, I didn't think you had it in you." Maxime shook herself and refocused. Her Biomancy spilled into the girl, and Shiv leaned over to see what she was doing. At once, the internal architecture of the goblin began to recompose itself. Veins and arteries snapped away from the surrounding tissues. Blood welled, but it circulated in accordance with Maxime's will, pooling in place. He also saw the threads of mithril crawling through the patient, slowly subsuming them from the inside. It was becoming something like a nest with the outer layer of compromised veins, arteries, and flesh turning silvery bright outside and crystal within.

  Maxime sculpted the blood vessels around the heart with commendable attention to detail and intense focus. Shapes danced out from each of her fingertips as she conducted an unheard orchestra.

  "This one has a bit of potential," Helix said begrudgingly. "Seems that I underestimated her just slightly."

  Maxime licked her lips as she fused the blood vessels she'd seized back together. The focus crystal she had for her right eye glowed as she created a sort of looping system around the heart, and it beat weakly. Shiv could see it slowing, could see the vessels swell in a strain within.

  At the same time, however, he felt something else. His vectors crashed against the spreading of the mithril, and parts of it broke away. He leaned away in surprise.

  "Marcus! Marcus! Keep pressure!" Maxime called out absentmindedly.

  "Sorry!" Shiv pressed his hand down again, and once more the tides slithering through his being carved into the mithril, shattering the crystalline substance outright.

  Maxime frowned. "Huh? That's… No time to think about that," she muttered to herself. "Okay, okay, I just need to do this carefully." And Shiv saw a series of hair-thin tendrils extending upward. Micro blood vessels. They slipped past the forming nest of crystal and began connecting to the rest of the body, linking to organs.

  "Oh, dear, I see what she's doing." Helix sighed. "It's logical, but if you would observe—"

  "Shit!" Maxime cried out. Several of the strands broke. Her spells shattered, and the heart began spewing blood violently. Her concentration failed—the goblin started convulsing. "This might happen. Too much cognitive strain. Again, the girl has a good idea and very good control, but there are limits to her raw ability. As a Biomancer, you must know your own limits—"

  "Helix," Shiv said, voice low. He was losing his patience. "Give suggestions, don't just prattle on about what other people are doing wrong."

  "Well, my suggestion is to simply let this one die because there's no way you can fix her without revealing your true nature. In fact, you should peel your hand away from her body before you break more of the mithril using that disgustingly potent Magical Resistance of yours."

  "No," Shiv growled mentally. "No, I'm not doing that. Godsdamn it, if I'm going to be a Pathbearer, I'm going to save who I can."

  Adam let out a gasp. "Shiv, I think I have something. I don't fully know if this is the source of the problem, but there's something lodged in between her stomach and her upper diaphragm. It's a glinting piece of mithril, and there are a lot of things that are spreading out from it. It’s bright and dense compared to the other crystals.”

  Shiv narrowed his eyes and peered through the wound he'd left in the goblin. He ignored Maxime’s panicked breaths—how the other two medics were just gawking, pale-faced and shivering. He still couldn’t see the mithril seed well, so he briefly dipped his Biomancy over the goblin.

  There! He found it rendered on his Aegis first, and as some of the blood welled out from the goblin, he saw the glinting seed with his own eyes for the first time as he zoomed into the patient’s innards.

  Farsight 97 > 101 (Skill Evolution Reached)

  Practical Metabiology 50 > 52 (Skill Evolution Reached)

  His Farsight went over the edge. Practical Metabiology followed it over. Two skills evolved as one.

  "Is it happening, Insul?" Helix sounded delighted. "Are you finally developing your Practical Metabiology skill? By the Challenger, without even really studying! You are an abomination of Biomancy, but I will make something of you yet! Tell me what you are going to get! Tell me now!"

  Shiv gritted his teeth as the shocks of evolution detonated within him. His body spasmed slightly, and he tried to keep himself still.

  Maxime’s panicked gaze snapped over to him. "Marcus? Marcus, are you alright?"

  "Just fine," Shiv said. "How is this one doing?"

  "I, I um…" Maxime looked overwhelmed. "I'm trying to keep her blood flow stable. I'm trying to keep her heart connected to the other organs in the brain. But it's just too much."

  "Did you see that earlier?" Shiv pointed, acting brazenly.

  “What?”

  “Between the diaphragm and the stomach, did you see that?”

  Maxime leaned over and used her Biomancy to peel the flesh open and see more. As she did, she caught sight of it: a speck of color, a color so bright that it made all the other silver seem dim. "What is that? Oh, Ascendants and the Darkness Sublime, that’s the seed! Hal! Hal!" she called aloud.

  The senior resident came rushing toward them, and then he slid past them, slipping on a particularly wet patch of blood. Hal cried out as he struck a gurney chin-first, and when he collapsed to the floor, he didn't rise; he was out cold.

  "What’s up with that guy’s Toughness?" Shiv muttered.

  "Oh, Gods, Hal!" Maxime gasped. Her hand shot up to her mouth.

  But just then, Malcolm strode back onto the scene, humming a jaunty tune. Its right arm unfolded like the blossom petals of a metal flower. Previously, they looked like human hands, simply metallic. Now, however, its middle finger became a set of pliers, its index finger a telescope and beam, while its pinky now resembled a stubbed dispenser.

  "Alright, I got it."

  Maxime scowled at him. "Malcolm? Where were you?"

  "Figuring something out while checking one of the other patients—had to go get permission from Javelina to test it. Let's see if my theory proves correct—Oh, shit, you found it! Great. Let’s see if it will magnetize." Immediately, it dug its hand into the goblin’s body with gentle precision.

  At the same time, Shiv noticed several of the automaton's fingers were spewing sprays of chemicals that stung at Shiv's eyes and nose.

  The Deathless shook as his Skill Evolution continued its metamorphosis inside him. His senses felt strange. His hearing kept cutting in and out. His eyes were getting more sensitive, and his taste buds were filling with new odors.

  “What are you doing?” Maxime asked, looking down at Malcolm’s surgery.

  “Oh, I froze a bit of a patient’s blood, and now I’m going to see if I can get it to—Ah, there we go.” A clicking noise sounded as the automaton extracted a piece of glinting mithril. "It crystallized and got stuck to the frozen blood. Not bad for a bot, huh, Maxime?" Malcolm laughed aloud. "Alright, that's one down and—Broken Moon and Cripple’s missing arm, what did you do to this poor bastard’s heart?!"

  "I was trying to bypass the crystal nest!" Maxime shouted.

  "Yeah, well, it looks like you lost focus somewhere. A bunch of those vessels ruptured."

  "I know!" Maxime cried. "Just help me try to re-link everything, okay?"

  "Yeah, yeah, on it," Malcolm said.

  The automaton's Biomancy was channeled through its fan-shaped face, and it radiated outwards in pulsing waves.

  "Huh, it's like sonar," Adam commented.

  Shiv watched as Malcom’s Biomancy did its work. "Sonar?"

  "It's a sort of… Bats use it. It's hard to explain. I'll elaborate later."

  Maxime and Malcolm pooled their mana together. Despite how they jabbed at each other, it seemed that they were more than accustomed to working as one. In moments, the severed vessels untangled from around the heart and connected them to the rest of the body's architecture. The organ at the core of the goblin began beating faster again, and Shiv watched as she let out a rasping breath.

  Just then, his Skill Evolution concluded, and every part of his biological system came alight with electric awareness. The world was different now; his Farsight changed into something altogether more wonderful, altogether more expansive.

  Skill Fusion: Practical Metabiology (Initiate) - Farsight (Adept) > Atlas of the Flesh Scryer (Master)