Path of the Deathless

252 (I) Metamorphosis [III]

- by Legend-Headmaster Hades Hymn252 (I)

Metamorphosis [III]

"I cannot extract the one plaguing you. Not as I am now," Valor declared. He made no attempt to hide the shame in his words. "I am sorry, Sister Uva. I wish I could provide you with a solution to your problem, but I can't. Your corruption runs too deep. My Animancy is insufficient. My memories of facing the Outsiders are fragmented as well. There is not nearly enough of me at this time to contend with such an adversary. And… I fear there might never have been enough of me to overcome an eldritch god to begin with. Legend or not, I was not Divine. There is a threshold to my power—rules the Outside might not abide by.”

"No need for self-blame, Legend Valor." Most of Uva's forking consciousness remained at war, forming a denser and denser weave to her layered cocoon around Blackedge. No longer did the breaches happen so often. She learned that some of the Outsiders could only be carved with more intricate configurations in her Psychomantic spider web. However, there was a portion of her psyche that panicked, that suffered on her behalf. That fragment of her mind had been consumed by absolute terror ever since the Eldest made its corruption known.

Uva’s lampooning was matched only by the sheer existential dread that constantly overflowed from inside of her.

She remained cool on the surface, functional in operation, but there was a part of her that was howling, screaming, begging, crying for the Composer to save her—and her goddess heard every single word.

The Composer weeps and laments:

Her voice was tinged with sadness, and the Eldest latched onto the moment to speak:

Uva snarled psionically. Her telepathy shattered the minds of a few hundred Fingerlings, but did nothing to the nightmare staining the colors of her deeper soul.

“So,” Rose began next to Uva, “explain this to me again, Starhawk, because I'm not getting it. Why can't you just burn out this weird horror thing that's nested inside her skill using your incredible power?”

The study at the peak of Starhawk’s Perch was filled by what few remaining Biomancers, Psychomancers remained alive in Blackedge, as well as the only person here that had a functioning Animancy skill: Valor. Uva hadn't called for them herself; the Starhawk had reached out to Rose Van Erren and commanded her to summon a cadre of supporters.

While this was happening, the Stranger was having one of his meltdowns and was loudly screaming for his children to see clearly, to find Blackedge, to find their way in, and to do what they were always supposed to do, which was to steal Uva's body, hollow out her mind, and use her as a proper soul sleeve for the eldritch god to wear for his pleasure.

The Starhawk's voice reverberated through the room. A shadow of the deity was manifested, and he looked upon Uva with a posture of powerlessness that mirrored the Composer.

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"My Psychomancy is the lodestone,” Uva said. “Without it, there is no defense of Blackedge. There is no protection. There is no hope. And it too is compromised now.”

the Eldest corrected, whispering from the depths of her very soul. "

"I did not wish to!" Uva snapped, a snarl of anger escaping her. An uncharacteristic rage took hold of her body, and she teetered close to the brink of a frenzied state. "I did not wish to," she said, her anger cooling quickly, returning to its ice-cold state. Her focus asserted itself as she used her Psychomancy to infuse her mind with iron-clad control.

"That is the great problem with you, Eldest," Uva seethed. "You did not ask. I did not get to decide. This was not my metamorphosis. This is yours. You imposed yourself upon me. You are trying to change me against my desires. You use words of sympathy and reason, but you don't fully understand them. Because you can't, just like I don't fully understand you. And now you are here, desperate for me to stop struggling, desperate for the Starhawk to pull away his power from defending my soul so that you can take the rest of me, so that I can be transformed into whatever twisted effigy you wish to make."

Compounding her darkening mood were the mana storms sweeping through the Stranger's wilderness. The colossal trees veined with branching eyes were being consumed. Massive cataclysms of Aerokinetic lightning lashed at the realm, warring with the Eldritch, spreading further and further, tearing the very fabric of this place apart, reducing the places where Uva could hide. Yet it did nothing to stymie the Stranger's offspring, for they were forced into the storm, cast into oblivion, swallowed and rent apart by the fangs of the System, abandoned by their parent. They were used, without their consent, without the ability to decide for themselves.

Blackedge was slowly running out of places to hide, and the Fingerings were closing in. But that might not be the town’s undoing; if Uva unraveled first, there would be no desperate last stand or escape. Only instant destruction. Only subsumption at the jaws of the Stranger, or the parent he could not perceive.

And in the miserable depths of her heart, she found a kinship with the Fingerlings. For she was in the same position. Only her siege was happening from the inside. Only she didn't face a parent, but rather a hostile entity that couldn't understand why she didn't see it as a benefactor.

"Okay, fine," the real Rose said, rubbing at her eyes. She was beset by exhaustion as well. She hadn’t slept for many days, a trifling thing for even an Adept Pathbearer, but Rose was still barely more than a Pathless, and Uva could still remember when her own Physicality and Toughness were trifling skills. "We can't do anything to her skills. We can't use any Animancy to lance the fucker like a boil. So, what we do?"

"For now," Uva replied quietly, "I will hold the Eldest’s influence at bay. I will try to find a way to escape first. If we can get back to Shiv, perhaps he will be able to pry it free. He managed it when I was only lightly infected, but that—"

Uva suddenly cried out as something lashed at her from the inside. Something exploded outward in fragments and fractals. Her skill didn't shatter, but something bit deeper into it. And as she spasmed, as her Psychomancy almost winked out at once, she heard the Eldest deliver a declarative statement, more than words, more than intent. A law that was inscribed upon her very soul.

Something soft, sour, and altogether yolk-like slid over Uva's tongue. The very sensation made her feel even more nauseous. And as she coughed, she realized she was vomiting, and she was being held up by the people who came in to assist her. Rose braced against her weight while Valor pulled her back to her feet.

The Starhawk was calling out to her while the Dreamtaker remained confused, unsure why her vessel was so affected, but she also seemed to be suffering from an acute case of active dementia. The Dreamtaker couldn't perceive anything the Eldest did, no matter how many times it was described to her, and so everything happening to Uva seemed an enigma, an anomalous and incomprehensible mystery to the Dreamtaker. It was akin to suffering from the throes of schizophrenia. It was an ugly thing—to have a parent nested inside you, hiding within you, willing to reach out and pervert anything that you touched. It made every god in the Outside contagious to the Eldest's whims.

"Kid—fuck! Kid! Uva?" Rose called out.

Her hands were on Uva’s cheeks, and the Umbral responded deliriously, coughing hard to clear her throat. “It's like a ladder, a ladder made from teeth,” she hissed. “Everything up and down, everything up and down, hitting into the same pairs of jaws, the System on one end, the Eldest on the other, all of us just prey, trapped in between.”

"Alright, kid, you are in ugly, ugly shape, let’s… Fuck me. Valor, Thaen, one of you dumbshits needs to come up with a way to help. We need to do felling , motherfuckers! Come on! Aren’t you a Legend? A ? Come on!”

But as she gripped Uva's left arm, part of the Umbral broke free, splitting away from her like glass. Rose let out a cry of surprise, and she stumbled, off-balance. However, rather than falling, Uva felt time flow slower around her, felt the world still. A part of her mana had been corrupted, had been woven into her being intractably, like a set of fibers.

But then a roaring flame coursed through her, driving the influence of the Eldest back. She felt the corrupted skill shatter and reform. She felt bits of herself get flayed away. Her Cryomancy was damaged. Uva shuddered, barely able to enunciate her pain. It was only Valor's effort and Rose's help that she remained standing.

For a moment, she teetered on the brink of oblivion. But she felt so many minds clinging to consciousness, still fighting, still warring against the Stranger's offspring, that she knew she couldn't. Even now, at the brink of agony, she couldn't. She had too many people to guard, too many responsibilities under her charge.

And if she fell, she wouldn't be able to face Adam. Worse yet, she wouldn't be able to face herself. She was a Cherished Sister Weave. And even if these weren't her people, they were still her duty. She was still devoted to the Composer's ways. And whatever flaws her goddess might have, mercy and nobility were not among them.

When the pain finally faded and she regained control of her own body, she could hear the Starhawk speaking. The god sounded apologetic, but ultimately resolute.

Uva found herself staring up at the ceiling. The roof above her was cracked and veined with damage. She could see the dense nest of translucent and incandescent mana that was threaded over the top of Starhawk's Perch.

The rest of her mind continued working. Only this portion of her endured the brunt of the pain, suffered the consequences of mere unconsciousness. It was quite a considerable Heroic-Tier Skill to have.

Another hallucination manifested beside her. It was a clone of herself, shaped to seem exactly like Uva, except in one specific way. The left side of her body was fracturing, shattering like fractals of ice. Chronomancy was infused within it. It was power that left everything in stasis, that froze more than just temperature.

"Get out of me," Uva hissed. She bordered on the verge of delirium, but the anger inside her had hardened, like ice, hardened, and found itself utterly impotent.

"The Eldest is speaking to you right now?" Valor asked. Uva didn't have time to reply to the Legendary Pathbearer. The Starhawk's power flowed through her once more, but this time it didn't banish the Eldest. This time, the hallucination stayed, and now Uva questioned if this delusion was born of her own mind, of her own mental state being driven to the very limit, or if it was truly the eldritch being making its final play for her soul.

As the Eldest recited their words like a mantra, Uva realized that they might not be any freer than she. They had to spread. They were only conscious when they were within her. They were only real when they were bound to her skills. She considered that the Eldest might effectively be a primordial plague, traveling through the other Eldritch Gods.

And now, they experienced a brief moment of the truth as they spread through her. There was an existential terror here, a coldness she'd never experienced before. To only be real in instances, in flickers, and then afterward to be merged with something else, what kind of life was that? And what would remain of her if she truly became one with it? What would remain of them? Would either of them still be at all?