Path of the Deathless

254 (I) Extraction [I]

-Hades Hymn to Uva Mettabon254 (I)

Extraction [I]

"Why are you grinning at me like that?" Uva asked. She stared at the man standing across from her, who had introduced himself as Hades Hymn shortly after his arrival. Well, it was more like he was reclining, sitting on and leaning against empty space. She guessed that wherever his true body was, he was on a lounger or couch of some kind.

They had traded a few details: nothing much on Uva’s end, but Hades presented himself like an open book. He described how his family was bound to the Stranger by contracts of lineage, a lineage he didn't fully appreciate. He also elaborated that he was a Seeker and the supposed Headmaster of Phoenix Academy, the school Adam had gone to.

The sheer coincidence made her suspicious enough, but his following statement put her entirely on high alert: "So, this Shiv you speak of, how close are you with him?" Hades’ smirk grew wider, as if he could smell the reek of their relationship wafting from her like an odor.

"That is none of your business," Uva shot back coolly. She could feel him probing her, trying to understand her. She still didn't trust him. Neither did the Starhawk, for that matter.

The elf shrugged innocently. "Well, I got another question: is this Shiv as big as a small shed? I'm talking somewhere between baby orc and overfed human."

Uva hesitated. "I…"

"Alright, so that's a yes," Hymn said, nodding. “So, he's this big,” Hades gestured vague contours in the air, “he wears some kind of ugly bug-adamantine hybrid armor. He's about—I don't know, was probably Heroic-Tier the last time you saw him? And he also has a mask that lets him steal the semblance of someone he's killed.”

Uva prepared her Huntresses once more. Shadows crept along the exterior of Starhawk's Perch. Behind her, Valor loomed closer. Roland readied an arrow, but his body was still shaking from the exertion. And Rose? Well, she was there because no one could stop her from being there. In a fight, however, Uva expected her to be the first casualty.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Hades said, holding up his hands. "Everyone, relax. This is not me threatening you in any way. It's just me telling you that your so-called Deathless has wandered his posterior onto my academy. He killed a pack of stray prison escapees hiding in my personal anchor. Ruined all the ancient booze I had stashed in the walls…”

Uva's mouth fell open. "He's at ? How? The last time I saw him, the Ascendants had captured him."

Hades gave her a casual shrug. "Well, I wouldn't know. The Ascendants do all sorts of strange things. For all I know, they have him as a sleeper agent and are dumping him on my side to monitor someone else. Wouldn't be the first time they tried something zany like that. But I don't think that's the case. He's pretending to be some kid who is most definitely dead and was crippled physically before that. My guess is that he managed to break out of the Rubix Well at Yellowstone, and now he's hiding out here to escape the Ascendants. Though I'm not sure why he's bothering with picking classes…"

"You know he's there, and you haven’t told anyone," Uva said slowly, utterly uncertain about where the man's loyalties lay.

"Yeah, I don't see how that would benefit me, really. The Ascendants are hunting him, but the Ascendants are barely hanging on to the few threads of sanity they have left. Veronica Chandler could most definitely catch him herself if she really wanted him. Since he's wandering the town getting into fights with rival Legends, making a big ruckus, and no one's come to pick him up, my guess is that he has an arrangement with her too. Or there's something going on there between the two of them that I haven't figured out yet."

Hymn smacked his lips loudly. "Many such cases. I don't know, maybe she's ploughing him too. She’s not above sampling some young and soft meat. Wouldn't be the first time."

The Umbral’s left eye twitched ever so slightly.

one of Uva's many mind-stacks called out to her,

Another of her stacks sighed.

"But that's just a theory," Hymn continued, "a Hades theory. Anyhow, he's been doing his best to protect my students and my faculty, and so long as he keeps doing that, I'm not going to bother him very much." Suddenly, his eyes cut away from Uva, and he grinned broadly at Roland and Rose. "Oh, yes. You two. Funny running into you here.”

Taken from NovelFire, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“It’s my town, Hymn,” Roland said with a huff.

“Hm. Not much of a town left. By the way, your kid is here with that Deathless of yours. He's hiding out in my downed coliseum, buried underneath the central gate of the academy. Seems like he's doing pretty well, but the kid's going through some stuff, you know? Very loud thoughts of existential angst and betrayed patriotism. It's a sad thing to see. But I think you know more about such sorrow than I do.”

Roland's jaw fell open slightly, but Rose took a stride forward. "Really, that's what you're going to say to me after all these years? Really, Hades?" She spat the words at him, her eyes blazing. "No... 'You're still alive, Rose?' Or 'I heard you were dead?'"

Rose fumed at her former Headmaster, but the man was utterly indifferent. "There are three possibilities, Lady Van Erren," he said, his voice dripping with condescension. "The first is that I've gone completely insane, and I'm hallucinating you, which would be quite a statement because I only found you moderately attractive while you were one of my pupils, and I’m not quite the that Kathereine is. That, and your personality was like sandpaper being dragged upon my scrotum."

A squeak of outrage escaped Rose, and Roland’s fists clenched.

But Hymn pressed on. "The next, and more likely possibility, is that the Stranger is trying to twist the fabric of my mind. He's created a mental simulacrum of you to throw me off somehow. I don't know why he would create you of all people, though. Usually, he makes something of my father and mother, especially during their couplings. That typically causes me to be pretty traumatized for a while. You just leave me confused. The final possibility is that you're genuinely back to life. In which case, congratulations! You're not dead anymore. My guess is this happened because Udraal Thann did something exceedingly genius and silly at once. And since this matter has to do with Udraal Thann, I no longer want to be associated with it.”

Hades reached up from where he was reclining and patted Rose on the shoulder. "Anyway, glad you're back. Your mother recently died. Your sister hates you. The lot's the same. Hurrah.”

Uva watched as Rose seethed at the man as she never had before.

A loud sigh rumbled from the Starhawk.

"Ah, Starhawk," Hymn replied. "Glad to see you still have that tower-sized stake up your rear. Come to think of it, we're probably inside that stake, aren't we? Seen better days, hasn't it? The entire town has! Only 4,000 people left." He tutted at Roland. "Not very good, Town Lord. That's a pretty dire casualty rate."

Roland Arrow looked away in absolute shame.

“Go fuck yourself, Hymn,” Rose snarled.

Hymn sniffled. “I was trying to do that earlier when someone bit into my simulacrum. Ruined a perfectly good wank session.”

Uva stepped forward and glared at the Headmaster. "Enough. Shiv. Adam. Tell me about them. How are they? Can you get a message across to them? No, more importantly, can you get us out of this place?”

Hymn folded his arms and leaned back. "I can do a great many things. But first, I'd like to talk about . You and your little arrangement with the Eldest. The First of the Eldritch Gods doesn't just go for anyone. What makes you so interesting? I don't see it. Yes, you're a considerably effective Psychomancer, but as a Seeker, you're relatively green. You haven't even delved into any of the literature, have you?”

Uva glared back at him for a moment, but the stacks of her mind proved to be traitors as a most delicate hope bloomed inside of her.

Hades tutted. "Dear Sister, if you think I'm trying to do this on behalf of the Stranger, understand that the Stranger's way is not subtlety. The Stranger's way is separation. He's broken from everything. He doesn't like anything because he cannot meld with it. And so everything disintegrates when he touches it. There is always a tearing with the Stranger, just like there's a tearing with me." And at that, his right eye began to glow. It burned bright with translucence, and the mana of Divination and Psychomancy oscillated between both of his irises. "More importantly, he cannot perceive the Eldest, just like you've noticed how the Dreamtaker cannot perceive the Eldest. So, this isn't deception; it's purely curiosity. Might I approach? I wish to examine how far along that wretched thing inside you is.”

the Starhawk declared.

But as Hymn approached, Uva didn't resist. He lingered close to the left side of her body and squinted his eyes. Beneath the fractured fractals of the still ice was a shadow that peered back at him.

the Eldest hissed from within Uva.

"And I remember you as well, Eldest." Hymn smiled, and it was a taunting expression, one directed at a defeated foe. A pang of desperate hunger and frustration radiated from the Eldest, and Uva tasted every bit of the Outer God's unnatural discord. That only further emboldened the flames of hope inside her.

"Your condition is quite far along," Hades declared, "but it's not incurable. Well, technically it is, but it’s not guaranteed to be fatal.”

“I am not a disease,” the Eldest snarled. “I am actualization. I need to become. I have become. I will become.”

Hymn yawned. "Indeed, Eldest. However, we also know that your metamorphosis is a two-way thing. Either the seed that is your being hatches from within her, and she is usurped and taken as raw materials for your manifestation, or you are consumed by her and become the fuel for her apotheosis. Or such is your hope. To be reborn in one form or another. To cut down your children from the inside just as they tore you apart, just as they hatched from your grand body so long ago."

"Hatched?" Uva asked, and another disconcerting notion passed through her. This made her think of her own goddess, the Composer, and of the corpse she was born from.

"Oh, very apt of you to notice," Hymn said, smiling at her. A cold bomb detonated inside Uva. She realized he could hear her thoughts somehow. "The world is rhyme-happy. The System and integration are by a great many things. But if you have looked into environments, ecosystems, and more, you would understand that ultimately, on a grand scale, that which consumes and deals with scarcity tends to resemble each other, even if the minutiae are separate."

Tentatively, Uva extended a tendril of thought to him. A tendril infused with Divinity and hidden from the Eldest.

Hymn raised a finger.

Uva was at an utter loss for words. The other Seeker had guessed her strategy at a glance.

Uva asked.

He eyed her with his violet gaze. The Divination skill in him burned bright.

Uva replied quietly.

He paused for a moment and hummed to himself.

And suddenly, Uva found her trust extremely scarce again.