“I still don’t like this,” Zil says. “She could backstab you at any moment.”
“And I’d kill her. I’m not finding a compelling reason to care,” I reply. “Hurry up.”
Ashley remains silent.
Though it cost my Soulshard Rifle a handful of charges to break Zil out of his cage, he apparently has enough knowledge from his Halcyon days to unlock Ashley’s cell. It took some convincing for him.
Honestly, I’m not entirely convinced myself for entirely different reasons. With every step we take towards the exit, the temptation to kill and eat Ashley grows stronger. Though it’s not quite as strong as it might be with someone completely defenseless (like, say, a baby), it’s a fact that I grievously wounded her. She hasn’t recovered very well from that.
It would be so easy, a voice whispers. I can’t tell if that’s me, the researchers’ implanted commands, or the subdued divine passenger, but I suppose it doesn’t really matter.
The worst part is that it’s correct. Even if she tries to activate a special skill, I can make her forget I exist. A single blast with every charge in the Soulshard Rifle would do it. A Soulblade-Smite combo would be overkill. Hells, if her power is weak enough right now, I might be able to just Hemorrhage her.
But I can’t copy her special skills, even with my upgraded Devour, and she did spare me once upon a time. I can’t tell which one of those factors matters more to me at the moment, and that concerns me.
I shake the thoughts from my mind, attempting to tamp down on the hunger to no avail.
It must be showing on my face, because Ashley shies away from me, turning away when I make eye contact with her.
She claims to have worked with Arthur in the interest of securing the Crowned Islands from me. At some point—presumably after I annihilated the ambush meant for me—they had a falling out over the topic of the Titan, which Ashley doesn’t seem to like in the slightest. Apparently, she was trying to undermine the project when Arthur captured her.
I don’t know how much of her story I believe, and neither Zil nor I have ways to detect if she’s lying, but more firepower is always welcome.
“Hold onto me,” Zil says as we round a corner.
The grey hallway terminates abruptly, another one of the now-familiar rune circles marking the ground here.
“Where does this one go?” I ask, using Shapeshift to temporarily create a third arm to hold onto him with. Both of my other hands are occupied. One of them holds an overly long Soulblade while the other carries my rifle—if Ashley acts against us, I’ll have her dead in a second.
“The Grey facility is not my family’s only prison fragment,” Zil says. “But it’s the hardest to escape from. Our only exit is to another prison realm. From there, we can burn a path to the Titan’s fragment.”
Ashley gingerly places a burnt arm on Zil’s lower back, wincing as she moves. I still have yet to see her in combat, so I don’t know if she can even shoot right now.
The hunger burns brighter than ever, and I almost take her head off right here and now.
“No time to waste,” Ashley says, her voice raw.
Reality fades away, replaced by a new one.
???
Objective: Escape the fragment
Kill your way out of this fragment. Reward increases with the number of personnel eliminated.
Reward: 5000 secondary XP
“Play stupid games, win good prizes,” Adrian mutters to himself, swiping the quest notification aside.
5000 secondary XP is insane. At the thresholds that his Warrior class demands, it will propel his secondary class halfway through Category 0. If he gets enough kills, he may be able to leapfrog it entirely. There is a non-zero chance that Adrian can push himself to Category 2 if he escapes from this fragment.
Not that it really matters. Without access to a truly world-class healer, Adrian is going to have a broken soul in a matter of hours. He might be able to survive without one—for a time, at least—but he’ll be useless for far longer than he would if he just suffered through the backlash. Advancing a Category won’t mean anything if he can’t do anything with it.
Still, he does need to get out of this place. None of this matters if he just dies quietly. If he goes, he wants to go out with a bang.
Adrian is a touch surprised that he’s so alone. Thanks to the fact that his soul is slowly cracking, his Aquaperception doesn’t function as well as it could, but there’s still nobody around for a few hundred feet. There are pipes and shit going everywhere, which Adrian is tempted to use as transport. He has no idea where to go, though. There’s no conveniently labeled map here.
One thing’s for sure—this is one of those “anomalous fragments” that Sierra and Evelyn have discussed so much. Adrian hasn’t been in many, but the distinct sense that something is deeply, fundamentally wrong has persisted through every last one he’s been in.
He ends up deciding to take to the pipes, using his Fluid Form to glide through them as easily as breathing. Adrian doesn’t know where to go whether he walks or swims, so he may as well take the faster method of transport.
It’s hard to navigate, and he quickly regrets his choice. The plumbing goes into the walls, not quite following the layout of the building, and it doesn’t seem to adhere to the traditional laws of physics either. The pipes twist and wind seemingly at random, and it takes him precious minutes to figure out how to stick closer to populated parts of this fragment.
When he catches hints of conversation, he locks himself in place, eavesdropping on the people underneath his current location. In his Fluid Form, he exchanges much of his human senses for raw power, so he can’t hear them that well, but he makes out enough.
“…lost contact… the grey facility,” one voice says.
“Fuck,” another one replies. At least, Adrian thinks it’s another one. His hearing really isn’t good in this form.
Lost contact with the grey facility? That means something—or someone—is interfering with these people’s plans, right?
Adrian can guess who that is.
That aside, these people definitely count as personnel. He supposes this counts for the quest. Should he act? Wait for someone else? Move on?
You hesitate too much. Sierra’s voice crosses his mind, unbidden. It is undeniable that you have power. Join us. We can guide you.
And they had, but where are they now? Sierra is elsewhere and the rest are dead.
Adrian has to act.
The thought doesn’t exactly reaffirm his resolve, but it’s enough of a kick in the ass for him to get moving.
Hydrokinesis, he thinks, and the gushing not-quite-water fluid around him roars to a stop under his will, the sub-skill of Water Magic taking hold immediately.
Aquaperception tells him that there are two sources of water in this room. Unfortunately, he can’t tell where people are with this skill, so he’s going to have to guess.
Doubt touches his mind for a single, paralyzing second, and Adrian forces it away. Now is not the time for caution.
The pressure in the pipe has been steadily building thanks to the stopped chunk of liquid, and with a single burst of will, Adrian harnesses that pressure, bursting a fist-sized hole through the inch-thick steel of the pipe.
When a vessel gives an inch, the ocean takes a mile.
Moments after the first hole appears, the entire pipe crumples. Adrian spills out of it alongside a torrent of liquid, dropping his Fluid Form as he does.
He has only a matter of moments to make sense of what’s going on, but his Mind (Speed) stat isn’t too shabby.
There are four people in the room, each of them wearing full-body containment suits. Two covered pools of water are the only other relevant feature in this room, both of them containing what appear to be unconscious bodies.
Adrian winces at the sight, reminded of the state he was in just minutes ago, and he whispers a silent apology as he cast his magic.
Water Magic - Wave Crash.
As the containers explode outwards, the water within them tripling in volume and shattering the transparent steel, Adrian closes his eyes.
He thinks of the choices he’s made. The weight of what he’s about to do. These people didn’t attack him. As far as he knows, they haven’t done anything wrong.
But because of his quest, he’s condemning them to death, and that’s his choice. It’s one of the first true choices he’s made in years. Maybe the first he’s made that matters.
I think I could use it now.
The weight of the act fills him, and so Adrian feeds it to the sea. He reaches deep within, drawing on one of his many remaining untapped wells of mana, and he fuses it with that sensation.
Special skill: Water Magic - Blade of the Eternal Sea.
Special skill: Water Magic - Tempest Strike.
The second special skill just slips out, almost unbidden. An instinctive activation, but it’s one that Adrian welcomes.
He’s not sure what’s changed, but this execution of his skills feels different. As the room floods and blades made from the primordial ocean form in his hands, he realizes why.
Adrian’s always felt like a rowboat amidst a storm, letting the roiling sea take him wherever it pleases. Whether those winds are made by Sierra or his own skills, he’s been content if not happy with that so far.
Now, he is the sea.
Tempest Strike takes effect, and Adrian steers it, driving himself into one, two, three, four people. With water crashing over the entire room, his blades vastly increase in power.
Adrian’s temporary ocean sweeps the bodies away before they can hit the floor, submerging the room.
He returns to his Fluid Form to exit the flood, reemerging outside. The flood follows him, splashing out into the hallways and spreading further.
For the first time in a long, long while, he feels strong.
“There you are,” a familiar voice says.
Adrian blinks, coming out of his reverie. “Sierra?”
“I found you with Locate,” the currently-only-Blue Mage says, hovering about the knee-deep water. “Looks like I was late to the party.”
“Have you got a way out?” Adrian asks.
“I think so,” Sierra replies. “You ready to go?”
He’s tempted to fall in line, just like he always does. He’s tempted to let Sierra do all the thinking. It would be so easy to just be the same follower he always is.
But right now, that feels wrong.
“Yes,” Adrian replies, controlling the water around him. His Blade of the Eternal Sea is still active, he realizes, and so he sucks the flood into it, empowering it further. “Where are we going?”
Sierra tilts her head, her eyes glittering.
“What is it?” Adrian asks. “We need to meet up with the other two and make sure they’re still alive. Take revenge if they aren’t.”
“You look different,” Sierra tells him, patting him on the shoulder. “It’s a good look.”
Adrian’s spent a long few years following in Sierra’s footsteps.
This time, when she starts off towards their escape, he walks alongside her.
Anomalous Fragment 001-WHITESTAR
The morsel is coming closer, but it is not close enough.
Consume.
The Titan’s slumber is nearing an end.
Annihilate.
Its brethren and the mortals of this false reality alike seek to wake it, desiring the power it will soon develop.
Devour.
Even now, a small group of mortals enter this shard of reality, bringing a litany of sedated beings with them.
“We’re missing some,” one of them says. “Where’d they go?”
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to,” another replies.
Though it should not care about the matters of beings so far beneath it, this intrigues the Titan.
Missing. Is the demonic female with the broken deity one of those that are not yet here?
The mortals begin a ritual before the Titan can roll over in its sleep and crush them. It watches.
Over the course of an hour, they cast magic across the sedated individuals and the reality alike. It bores the Titan, who still hungers for a meal that is realities away from it.
Until, at the end of their ritual, the mortals act.
In an instant, forty-eight sedated beings die, and the fuel from their deaths enters the Titan.
At the same time, the mortals and the Titan’s brethren begin chanting the same harmony, all of them driving it with one singular purpose.
Awaken.
It cannot do so now. Not when the sustenance it was promised has yet to deliver itself. Not when it is incomplete.
Awaken.
No. It refuses.
Awaken.
The demonic female jumps realities again. It is further away now.
Awaken.
This is unacceptable.
Awaken.
If it will not deliver itself, then the Titan will find it and consume it on its own. It hungers, tempted by the promises of power and satiety.
Awaken.
Inome, the Nameless Titan, opens its eyes, and every surviving mortal in its shard of reality dies.
Moments later, the entire shard follows.
The Titan leaps through connected shards, breaking each of them as it arrives. Its control is poor, and it knows that it is sending them spinning into the anchored reality that its brethren thrive in, but it does not care.
It was promised power, and nothing will deny the Titan its wishes.
Ten shards between them become nine, six, two, none.
As it emerges, the demonic female makes one final jump, accompanied by two other insignificant beings.
Before she disappears, Inome witnesses a single sentence.
“Ah, fuck,” Evelyn Carnelian says. “It’s here.”
She spirals towards the anchored reality, and the Titan follows.
“I still don’t like this,” Zil says. “She could backstab you at any moment.”
“And I’d kill her. I’m not finding a compelling reason to care,” I reply. “Hurry up.”
Ashley remains silent.
Though it cost my Soulshard Rifle a handful of charges to break Zil out of his cage, he apparently has enough knowledge from his Halcyon days to unlock Ashley’s cell. It took some convincing for him.
Honestly, I’m not entirely convinced myself for entirely different reasons. With every step we take towards the exit, the temptation to kill and eat Ashley grows stronger. Though it’s not quite as strong as it might be with someone completely defenseless (like, say, a baby), it’s a fact that I grievously wounded her. She hasn’t recovered very well from that.
It would be so easy, a voice whispers. I can’t tell if that’s me, the researchers’ implanted commands, or the subdued divine passenger, but I suppose it doesn’t really matter.
The worst part is that it’s correct. Even if she tries to activate a special skill, I can make her forget I exist. A single blast with every charge in the Soulshard Rifle would do it. A Soulblade-Smite combo would be overkill. Hells, if her power is weak enough right now, I might be able to just Hemorrhage her.
But I can’t copy her special skills, even with my upgraded Devour, and she did spare me once upon a time. I can’t tell which one of those factors matters more to me at the moment, and that concerns me.
I shake the thoughts from my mind, attempting to tamp down on the hunger to no avail.
It must be showing on my face, because Ashley shies away from me, turning away when I make eye contact with her.
She claims to have worked with Arthur in the interest of securing the Crowned Islands from me. At some point—presumably after I annihilated the ambush meant for me—they had a falling out over the topic of the Titan, which Ashley doesn’t seem to like in the slightest. Apparently, she was trying to undermine the project when Arthur captured her.
I don’t know how much of her story I believe, and neither Zil nor I have ways to detect if she’s lying, but more firepower is always welcome.
“Hold onto me,” Zil says as we round a corner.
The grey hallway terminates abruptly, another one of the now-familiar rune circles marking the ground here.
“Where does this one go?” I ask, using Shapeshift to temporarily create a third arm to hold onto him with. Both of my other hands are occupied. One of them holds an overly long Soulblade while the other carries my rifle—if Ashley acts against us, I’ll have her dead in a second.
“The Grey facility is not my family’s only prison fragment,” Zil says. “But it’s the hardest to escape from. Our only exit is to another prison realm. From there, we can burn a path to the Titan’s fragment.”
Ashley gingerly places a burnt arm on Zil’s lower back, wincing as she moves. I still have yet to see her in combat, so I don’t know if she can even shoot right now.
The hunger burns brighter than ever, and I almost take her head off right here and now.
“No time to waste,” Ashley says, her voice raw.
Reality fades away, replaced by a new one.
???
Objective: Escape the fragment
Kill your way out of this fragment. Reward increases with the number of personnel eliminated.
Reward: 5000 secondary XP
“Play stupid games, win good prizes,” Adrian mutters to himself, swiping the quest notification aside.
5000 secondary XP is insane. At the thresholds that his Warrior class demands, it will propel his secondary class halfway through Category 0. If he gets enough kills, he may be able to leapfrog it entirely. There is a non-zero chance that Adrian can push himself to Category 2 if he escapes from this fragment.
Not that it really matters. Without access to a truly world-class healer, Adrian is going to have a broken soul in a matter of hours. He might be able to survive without one—for a time, at least—but he’ll be useless for far longer than he would if he just suffered through the backlash. Advancing a Category won’t mean anything if he can’t do anything with it.
Still, he does need to get out of this place. None of this matters if he just dies quietly. If he goes, he wants to go out with a bang.
Adrian is a touch surprised that he’s so alone. Thanks to the fact that his soul is slowly cracking, his Aquaperception doesn’t function as well as it could, but there’s still nobody around for a few hundred feet. There are pipes and shit going everywhere, which Adrian is tempted to use as transport. He has no idea where to go, though. There’s no conveniently labeled map here.
One thing’s for sure—this is one of those “anomalous fragments” that Sierra and Evelyn have discussed so much. Adrian hasn’t been in many, but the distinct sense that something is deeply, fundamentally wrong has persisted through every last one he’s been in.
He ends up deciding to take to the pipes, using his Fluid Form to glide through them as easily as breathing. Adrian doesn’t know where to go whether he walks or swims, so he may as well take the faster method of transport.
It’s hard to navigate, and he quickly regrets his choice. The plumbing goes into the walls, not quite following the layout of the building, and it doesn’t seem to adhere to the traditional laws of physics either. The pipes twist and wind seemingly at random, and it takes him precious minutes to figure out how to stick closer to populated parts of this fragment.
When he catches hints of conversation, he locks himself in place, eavesdropping on the people underneath his current location. In his Fluid Form, he exchanges much of his human senses for raw power, so he can’t hear them that well, but he makes out enough.
“…lost contact… the grey facility,” one voice says.
“Fuck,” another one replies. At least, Adrian thinks it’s another one. His hearing really isn’t good in this form.
Lost contact with the grey facility? That means something—or someone—is interfering with these people’s plans, right?
Adrian can guess who that is.
That aside, these people definitely count as personnel. He supposes this counts for the quest. Should he act? Wait for someone else? Move on?
You hesitate too much. Sierra’s voice crosses his mind, unbidden. It is undeniable that you have power. Join us. We can guide you.
And they had, but where are they now? Sierra is elsewhere and the rest are dead.
Adrian has to act.
The thought doesn’t exactly reaffirm his resolve, but it’s enough of a kick in the ass for him to get moving.
Hydrokinesis, he thinks, and the gushing not-quite-water fluid around him roars to a stop under his will, the sub-skill of Water Magic taking hold immediately.
Aquaperception tells him that there are two sources of water in this room. Unfortunately, he can’t tell where people are with this skill, so he’s going to have to guess.
Doubt touches his mind for a single, paralyzing second, and Adrian forces it away. Now is not the time for caution.
The pressure in the pipe has been steadily building thanks to the stopped chunk of liquid, and with a single burst of will, Adrian harnesses that pressure, bursting a fist-sized hole through the inch-thick steel of the pipe.
When a vessel gives an inch, the ocean takes a mile.
Moments after the first hole appears, the entire pipe crumples. Adrian spills out of it alongside a torrent of liquid, dropping his Fluid Form as he does.
He has only a matter of moments to make sense of what’s going on, but his Mind (Speed) stat isn’t too shabby.
There are four people in the room, each of them wearing full-body containment suits. Two covered pools of water are the only other relevant feature in this room, both of them containing what appear to be unconscious bodies.
Adrian winces at the sight, reminded of the state he was in just minutes ago, and he whispers a silent apology as he cast his magic.
Water Magic - Wave Crash.
As the containers explode outwards, the water within them tripling in volume and shattering the transparent steel, Adrian closes his eyes.
He thinks of the choices he’s made. The weight of what he’s about to do. These people didn’t attack him. As far as he knows, they haven’t done anything wrong.
But because of his quest, he’s condemning them to death, and that’s his choice. It’s one of the first true choices he’s made in years. Maybe the first he’s made that matters.
I think I could use it now.
The weight of the act fills him, and so Adrian feeds it to the sea. He reaches deep within, drawing on one of his many remaining untapped wells of mana, and he fuses it with that sensation.
Special skill: Water Magic - Blade of the Eternal Sea.
Special skill: Water Magic - Tempest Strike.
The second special skill just slips out, almost unbidden. An instinctive activation, but it’s one that Adrian welcomes.
He’s not sure what’s changed, but this execution of his skills feels different. As the room floods and blades made from the primordial ocean form in his hands, he realizes why.
Adrian’s always felt like a rowboat amidst a storm, letting the roiling sea take him wherever it pleases. Whether those winds are made by Sierra or his own skills, he’s been content if not happy with that so far.
Now, he is the sea.
Tempest Strike takes effect, and Adrian steers it, driving himself into one, two, three, four people. With water crashing over the entire room, his blades vastly increase in power.
Adrian’s temporary ocean sweeps the bodies away before they can hit the floor, submerging the room.
He returns to his Fluid Form to exit the flood, reemerging outside. The flood follows him, splashing out into the hallways and spreading further.
For the first time in a long, long while, he feels strong.
“There you are,” a familiar voice says.
Adrian blinks, coming out of his reverie. “Sierra?”
“I found you with Locate,” the currently-only-Blue Mage says, hovering about the knee-deep water. “Looks like I was late to the party.”
“Have you got a way out?” Adrian asks.
“I think so,” Sierra replies. “You ready to go?”
He’s tempted to fall in line, just like he always does. He’s tempted to let Sierra do all the thinking. It would be so easy to just be the same follower he always is.
But right now, that feels wrong.
“Yes,” Adrian replies, controlling the water around him. His Blade of the Eternal Sea is still active, he realizes, and so he sucks the flood into it, empowering it further. “Where are we going?”
Sierra tilts her head, her eyes glittering.
“What is it?” Adrian asks. “We need to meet up with the other two and make sure they’re still alive. Take revenge if they aren’t.”
“You look different,” Sierra tells him, patting him on the shoulder. “It’s a good look.”
Adrian’s spent a long few years following in Sierra’s footsteps.
This time, when she starts off towards their escape, he walks alongside her.
Anomalous Fragment 001-WHITESTAR
The morsel is coming closer, but it is not close enough.
Consume.
The Titan’s slumber is nearing an end.
Annihilate.
Its brethren and the mortals of this false reality alike seek to wake it, desiring the power it will soon develop.
Devour.
Even now, a small group of mortals enter this shard of reality, bringing a litany of sedated beings with them.
“We’re missing some,” one of them says. “Where’d they go?”
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to,” another replies.
Though it should not care about the matters of beings so far beneath it, this intrigues the Titan.
Missing. Is the demonic female with the broken deity one of those that are not yet here?
The mortals begin a ritual before the Titan can roll over in its sleep and crush them. It watches.
Over the course of an hour, they cast magic across the sedated individuals and the reality alike. It bores the Titan, who still hungers for a meal that is realities away from it.
Until, at the end of their ritual, the mortals act.
In an instant, forty-eight sedated beings die, and the fuel from their deaths enters the Titan.
At the same time, the mortals and the Titan’s brethren begin chanting the same harmony, all of them driving it with one singular purpose.
Awaken.
It cannot do so now. Not when the sustenance it was promised has yet to deliver itself. Not when it is incomplete.
Awaken.
No. It refuses.
Awaken.
The demonic female jumps realities again. It is further away now.
Awaken.
This is unacceptable.
Awaken.
If it will not deliver itself, then the Titan will find it and consume it on its own. It hungers, tempted by the promises of power and satiety.
Awaken.
Inome, the Nameless Titan, opens its eyes, and every surviving mortal in its shard of reality dies.
Moments later, the entire shard follows.
The Titan leaps through connected shards, breaking each of them as it arrives. Its control is poor, and it knows that it is sending them spinning into the anchored reality that its brethren thrive in, but it does not care.
It was promised power, and nothing will deny the Titan its wishes.
Ten shards between them become nine, six, two, none.
As it emerges, the demonic female makes one final jump, accompanied by two other insignificant beings.
Before she disappears, Inome witnesses a single sentence.
“Ah, fuck,” Evelyn Carnelian says. “It’s here.”
She spirals towards the anchored reality, and the Titan follows.
