244 (II)

  Insight [II]

  The anvil-headed patient turned toward Shiv, its neck mechanism letting out a loud whirr. "Thank you," it said. Its voice was genuine and deep, and Shiv could feel the sheer gratitude radiating from its being. That felt better than most kills, and just then Shiv understood something. He understood why people did this, why people helped others.

  Saving people from disasters or monsters was one thing; that fed the ego, but this, watching them suffer from a decaying disease, deciphering where their body was ruined, and then remedying that with a desperate or genius fix, there was something wonderful about this. Something that was nobler, higher than a moment of violence. Life was fragile and fleeting. Even if one could extend the date of their death naturally, the System yearned for death to seek Pathbearers. There was always another beast, another murderer, another plague, another invading army, another World Quest that was fated to claim your life.

  To be a healer and protector meant delaying those moments, giving people more time. More time to be themselves. More time before the bitter end.

  Yet it also kindled something else inside you, a feeling of loneliness. He alone was the Deathless. He alone was beyond the clutch of oblivion. He alone. And he was going to make use of that. He was going to help as many people as he could. He was going to be a proper Pathbearer: someone who made things right. Becoming more than just a brute was too small a goal now. He wanted to make people's lives better.

  He wanted to cook again, and he wanted to heal as much as he broke and slew.

  "I, uh, you're welcome," Shiv said, swallowing.

  But the charming moment between him and the bot patient was interrupted as an anguished scream filled the air.

  "Don't leave me here! You hear me, Natalie? Don't leave me here! Do not leave me here… I can't do it without you. I just can't…"

  Beyond the highlighted tape that marked the threshold of the yellow section, most of the room was filled with category Black, people who were actively crystallizing. People who sustained mithril seeds close to the heart. An elf woman was convulsing, shaking. Her legs kicked out, her toes were curled back, and her eyes were rolling back into her head. Nearby, a male goblin was writhing against his restraints, trying to get to her. He wasn't in any better shape. His veins were nearly entirely crystal, and Shiv could see them crawling up along the stretch of his neck. Even so, his last surge of adrenaline was doing him great favors. He ripped the restraints holding him down out from the way they were attached to the gurney, and he almost made it over to his companion before a few medics pulled him back and held him down.

  "No, no, let me go! Let me go, she needs me!" the goblin shrieked.

  "Now then, focus up," Maxime said. She gestured toward Shiv and guided him to another patient. "There's nothing we can do about them. That's Black's business. We do what we can for our patients. You care about everyone, you’ll break yourself. Find something to focus on."

  Shiv nodded. Inside, however, her words made his guts coil, made something inside his heart tear. Do what I can for who I can. Well, I can help everyone here. I'm going to help everyone here.

  "Careful now, Insul," Helix warned. "If you do anything overt, you risk betraying who you actually are to everyone else in this room. The Hero-Biomancer is already looking in your direction."

  Shiv's head slowly turned to the side, where he noticed Javelina not far away, studying him with folded arms. Beside her, Vice 8 leaned down and whispered something. If they were talking about him, he didn't know. An uncomfortable tension built inside Shiv.

  It grew worse as three other patients began convulsing nearby. Three soon became nine. Patients in the black-taped section were rapidly spiralling.

  “Karreka!” one of the seniors called. “Get to the alchemy labs and find us mag-res potions! I don’t care if you need to make more, we need them now! Now!”

  "Deathless, your nobility is one thing, but remember, revenge is owed to me," the vampire insisted. "These people deserve life, but we deserve our own reward as well. I do not fault you for being burdened by their mortality, but our duties are to ourselves first! To Mettabon and her daughter! Think carefully before you reveal yourself—before you intervene.”

  The vampire’s words were desperate. Shiv and Adam were his only allies, and without them, he was alone and trapped in enemy territory. But if Shiv exposed himself, if he exposed them, then Tulveg would need to go on the run again, and his chances of hunting down Samuel were going to be even more diminished than before.

  Yet ultimately, Shiv wasn't alone here.

  "Do what you think is right. I'll help you any way I can."

  It was Adam who came to support him. Adam, whose morals were purer and straighter than Shiv's. Adam, who also gave a damn. And knowing there was someone else who cared mattered when it came time to cast the dice.

  And Shiv did know. He did know that they couldn't be any other way. That he wasn't going to be a Pathbearer who just let bad things happen. No, Shiv wasn't that weak. He didn't become a Legend to be weak. He became a Legend to make things better—to do the right thing, and also beat the consequences somehow.

  The world narrowed. Shiv made his decision. "I got an idea," Shiv said. "Helix, I'm going to need your help. Tulveg, you too.”

  The orc sighed, but that was the extent of his protest. "What foolishness are we going to perform now? How are we going to debase ourselves and expose our actions to the Hero-Biomancer, making this whole Perfect Semblance ruse pointless and bringing the Ascendants down on us?"

  "If we do this right, we don't expose ourselves at all. I'm going to try to find and isolate every single mana seed trapped inside the patients, and then we're going to move their hands over where the mana seed might be trapped. Now, that might not be enough on its own. So, Tulveg, I need you to have the patients say it hurts there so that the Biomancers can look."

  The vampire let out an impressed rasp. "Oh, I see, so you are using the patients themselves to hide your actions. I will see this done."

  "I'm going to trigger my Chronomancy field in a second," Shiv said. "Tulveg, I need you to wield your spores as quietly and subtly as you can. When time resumes, Helix, I need you to try and hijack people's nervous systems or muscles for them to slap wherever the seeds are. I'll let you know using my Psychomancy. I’ll start by finding the seeds first. Adam, you—"

  "I have the automata," Adam said resolutely. And so a plan came together. A plan that might see Shiv be revealed to his hunters, or see the intensive ward spared of additional deaths.

  But despite all that, Shiv wouldn't have it any other way. Once more, he looked to the goblin patient he'd saved earlier, and he focused. Her body came alight as the sparkling mana simulation of her biology flashed into being. He followed the silvery threads carving pathways through her veins and isolated them.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  The rest of the room came ablaze as a dozen other figures, then a hundred, then two hundred patients were all glowing bright in the corners of his eyes. Trails of light extended from all directions, crashing over the goblin's body. Her mana rendering was glistening bright, and Shiv could follow each of the trails back to another patient. He used his Bifurcated Processing to count all of them, to try and isolate where their mana seeds might be.

  But the effort required by this feat was colossal. His mind immediately began to burn; his brain felt like it was boiling inside his skull.

  Even so, he continued.

  Bifurcated Processing 59 > 60

  Shiv's awareness was drowned in a whirlwind of crimson and mithril. One after another, he located the nexuses of crystallization within the patient's bodies. One after another, he marked them and moved the information across to Tulveg using his Psychomancy.

  "Group one," Shiv declared. An explosion of unseeable spores shot out from his cape. They tore across the room, landing upon each patient and sinking into their flesh. Then he saw it, the faint outline of Psychomancy caressing them, settling into them.

  The temporal wards came. Shiv let time resume. He repeated his actions, and Tulveg worked in tandem. Helix joined in when time flowed as normal. He reached out using subtle workings, pulling at arms, making them slap down upon places where the shrapnel resided. At the same time, Adam called out specific areas where the automata were compromised.

  But even an engine of biopsychic efficiency that was two Legendary Pathbearers, supported by another two Heroes, had limits. Some patients went down before Shiv, their bodily processes collapsing, their biology turning dim until their red was dull and paltry—extinguished flames slowly drifting towards colorlessness.

  He knew then they were dead, and he had to accept their losses.

  Even if he didn't want to.

  Sage of the Enkindled Heart: Keep doing what you can. That is the only thing that will matter now.

  A symphony of hoarse voices cried out. The patients touched by Tulveg's spores slapped their bodies, told their residents where it hurt. Others cried out and writhed, suffering from muscle cramps that suspiciously happened to originate where the mithril seeds were hidden. Helix and Tulveg didn't much like each other, but they did what Shiv asked of them. The former because Shiv was his Insul, and to some level the Deathless suspected that the orc reveled in showing his Biomantic superiority and subtlety.

  Comparatively, Tulveg didn't care. Tulveg was just doing the right thing out of a personal favor for Shiv and because he yearned for allies, because there was a connection between Shiv and his long-lost lover’s daughter.

  The automata patients were a harder issue to resolve, and Adam started brainstorming ways to reveal where their seeds were hiding. Shiv, however, guessed that if they could take the load off of all the other patients and have them move to yellow or green, then more of the residents in black could turn their attention to helping the few bots that had been directed to Last Chance Sanatorium.

  And so it went. Shiv's mind ached as he strained his cognition, doing several things at once. He helped Maxime and Malcolm, along with his two fellow medics in yellow. He aided Hal when he woke up from crashing into the bed and called out for him. He located more of the mithril seeds across the room. He continued using his Atlas to greater effectiveness. He notified his allies of where the mithril was. And above all, he did his best to ignore the declarations that came with "time of death" and "call it." Shiv ignored them and kept working because that was all he could do, because everyone but him only had one shot, and he couldn't afford distractions.

  The insides of his skull felt like an inferno, and feverish visions came to Shiv. "You're gonna be alone someday. They're all going to be gone. No matter what you do, you can't protect them forever. They're going to be gone, and you're going to be alone someday."

  The thoughts tore into him like ravenous wolves gouging his underbelly. He didn't want them. He didn't want to hear it.

  He blinked, and he found Maxime holding on to him. He was shaking, and his thoughts were a messy slurry. “Nononono, you can’t take them from me—I won’t let you, I won’t let you…”

  "Marcus, take a break. Take a moment off."

  Shiv tried to take a step back, but he nearly stumbled.

  "Alright, okay, come on." Malcolm caught him by the arm. "Yup, yup, you're still probably concussed. Let's go. You need rest."

  They held on and led him away, but Shiv shook his head, trying to break free. "The patients…"

  "Oh, don’t you worry, we're having a proper miracle here today." And as Shiv looked to his right as he was guided toward a break room, he saw resident after resident calling out to each other. They were pulling pieces of glowing crystal out of the bodies of the patients. So many crystals… So many smiling faces and bright eyes. So many survivors…

  "Shrapnel found, seed extracted!"

  "Another one, it's right underneath his ribs."

  "God, that's close to the heart."

  "Okay, I barely got it. I need some help. I need someone to hold this vein still. Someone pinch this thing before it gets all over me. Oh, come on."

  "Alright, alright, just a little bit more. Cut a little bit deeper, it's gonna come out now."

  The symphony had changed. Instead of pain, there was a burgeoning sound of triumph. The tide was turning, and they didn't even know why.

  "Shiv! Shiv! Stop! Cut off the Bifurcated Processing!" Adam nearly screamed. “You’re going to cook your brain. If you drop dead here, we're busted.”

  The Deathless did as told, and a cool sensation spread through the base of his head. It was one of the sweetest sensations he'd ever enjoyed. A sigh of utter relaxation overtook Shiv, and he nearly blacked out right then and there.

  But then he snapped back to focus as he remembered he wasn't done. "The automata!”

  “They're fine," Adam replied. "Tulveg managed to tap into the minds of the Biomancers. Let's say they suddenly got inspiration as to where the shrapnel might be."

  A final breath of relief escaped Shiv as he was guided out of the intensive care ward and toward a nearby waiting room. Malcolm patted him on the shoulder. "Listen, don't let anyone chew you out for this. You did great today, newbie. Just friggin' fantastic. You won't get any props from Hero-Biomancer Javelina, but just so you know, you're a real Skyfire kid. A real Skyfire."

  “Skyfire?” Shiv slurred.

  “It’s how we put on big performances here in the capital. We send streams of Pyromancy and light up into the sky, and we project theater performances and musicals using the clouds as a backdrop. It’s really something. I’ll take you to see a show sometime. For now, just keep those legs moving. We’ll be at a seat soon.”

  Shiv nodded as he closed his eyes. Part of him wanted to fall asleep right there. He was surprised by how much Bifurcated Processing took out of him, but he did demand a great deal of his subconsciousness. He'd tried to isolate every patient that came in, every patient with a specific ailment. That was a major order for his mind, and he'd come close to suffering an aneurysm or something like that.

  Finally, Malcolm pushed open a door and sat Shiv down on a plush chair. Shiv massaged his temples and let out a groan.

  "You alright, Marcus?" Malcolm asked. "You need anything?"

  "No," Shiv replied hoarsely. "Just give me a few moments, I'll be back out to help you soon."

  "Don't be in too much of a hurry. You did enough, as I told you. We can't ask for more."

  But Shiv could have been quicker. Shiv could have thought of his solutions faster. That would have been a few lives saved. A difference made. A difference. Some more families who would have gotten to keep their loved ones.

  "Tell Maxime that I'm just gonna need a moment," Shiv managed. “I’ll… be back.”

  Malcolm began to chuckle, "Yeah, well, you can tell her yourself in a few minutes. With how you're doing, that girl's going to be tumbling head over ass for you pretty soon. She keeps making those eyes at you."

  Shiv's eyes snapped open. "Huh?"

  "Uh, never mind, you'll figure it out when you're older." Malcolm patted Shiv on the back a final time and laughed as it strode out of the break room.

  Shit, Shiv cursed. I can't deal with some academy romance bullshit.

  Adam chuckled. “What will Uva say about this, Shiv?”

  “Nothing, because I—”

  “Wait, Shiv—on your right!”

  And only then did Shiv realize that he was not alone. Beside him, there was another presence, another warmth. A helmet lay on another chair, just a meter away.

  A helmet made out of Inertium.

  Slowly, Shiv's head swiveled to his right, and he saw Jessica sitting on the table with her legs dangling, loudly chewing on what looked to be an old, craggy biscuit. Her nose was still bent the wrong way, and the bridge had a dark, inflamed line that hinted at a recent breakage.

  "So," she said, munching on her food, "long day for you too, huh, kid?"