WVKWnovel 152 (I) Undercover
152 (I) Undercover
-152 (I)
Undercover
Shiv couldn’t believe this shit.
Uva said, sounding exasperated herself. A brief pause followed.
That didn’t sound good.
Shiv asked.
Shiv sighed as he considered pulling Rose out. However, an unexpected individual intervened on her behalf.
Valor said.
That caught Shiv entirely off guard.
"What?" Adam gasped. He was listening in on the conversation. And Shiv could feel an ocean's worth of anxiety bleeding over from the Gate Lord. However, Adam didn't have the nerve to assert himself over his mother. A lifetime without her had left him with deep mental scars, mental scars that she was currently exploiting to strong-arm herself into a position on this mission. And now Valor was vouching for her for some reason.
Valor repeated again.
Shiv frowned.
Uva said, hesitant.
Valor added.
Valor said.
A grunt of annoyance came from Uva.
Uva sighed.
Shiv hesitated for a moment, then shrugged.
Uva synchronized him with Rose's mind. He was startled as he realized just how much anger was in the woman. Rose Van Erren was boiling from the inside out. She hated Whisper. She hated the orcs. And most importantly, she hated herself for being weak right then. Just through that alone, Shiv realized why she wanted to be a part of this operation. She was looking for high risk. She wanted to build her skills back up, and fast. Which meant that she was accompanying him for the same reasons the orcs were.
Shiv frowned. "Hey. Did you tell her that I'm System-favored?"
Adam blinked. "I... Perhaps? I briefly recounted everything we've gone through." And then his eyes widened. "Do you think that's why she wants to go with you? To advance her skills quicker?"
Shiv replied.
Rose said, injecting herself into their conversation.
Shiv said as he held up his Mask of False Paths. "I've got a Perfect Semblance to assume. And there are several other mind-controlled Inquisitors we're going to dump on Stormhalt. It's going to look like we escaped from Necrotech custody."
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As Rose took in the plan, a building weight of suspicion swelled inside of her.
Shiv paused. "The hells is a Devotion Skill?”
Rose scoffed.
She looked at Adam, and the Gate Lord nodded. "Well, I suppose we should do that before we leave, then."
Valor called out to Shiv, asking to be let out of the Cape.
Rose chuckled to herself.
***
"All right," Adam said as he pulled back a Veilpiercer. His eyes were glowing as he stared off into the distance. "The sun will be up soon, so Uva needs to stay hidden. I caught sight of some Inquisition scouts. They're closer than I expected. And they're moving fast. I'm going to adjust your positioning a little. It'll be thirty kilometers closer to us and a few hundred meters away from the Tidewall. I don't think it'll be any issue, but just be mindful of where you are. Use Margarita Point as a landmark in case you get lost."
"Got it." Beside Shiv were seven other Inquisitors, all staring on with vacant gazes and slack expressions. Their faces were scabbed with dried blood and recently healed cuts. Their armor had been taken away, and they were dressed in tattered rags, some of which were bloodstained. Others were sour with urine and other sources of foulness. Ultimately, it looked like they'd recently escaped from hell, which was exactly the image Shiv wanted to sell.
"All right, going over everything one final time, remember this. First, you're going to encounter the skirmishers and scouts. When you do, say that you managed to escape with your cohort. What do you say, Shiv?"
Shiv gritted his teeth in annoyance. This was the tenth time Adam asked him to recite the lines. "I know what to say."
"Just do it again, Shiv. Go through it again, so I'm absolutely confident."
"Alright, so when they find me, I'm going to tell them that I managed to break out from a Necrotech internment camp before they could shuttle us down into the Abyss. I will tell them that I suffered severe torture. That my comrades suffered severe torture. That I managed to escape because they thought I was already dead. Hence why I'm better dressed and why my skills are mostly intact. After that, I'll tell them Sullain has the Animancy Core, and he intends to use it on Blackedge at any moment. Probably tell them he kidnapped Sijik too and shit.”
"Good," Adam said.
"And if any of them try to use Psychomancy on us, I'll warn them off. Say that the Necrotechs planted things in our minds specifically to harm enemy Psychomancers."
"Right, that should buy you some time and get you moved closer to their main camp,” Adam said, nodding. “Once you're there, make contact with City Lord Havel if you can. Gather as much intelligence about their forces as possible, tell them about the Animancy Core again, make sure they're going in the direction of Lost Angeles to fight the Necrotechs, and then jump back. When you're done, do not wait, do not linger, simply jump back.”
"If I find an opening, I'll let the orcs out and do some damage," Shiv said.
"If," Adam stressed, ". That is secondary. That is only if there is an opportunity. Do not risk yourself, and by extension," Adam stared hard at him, "do not risk the people going with you.”
"Yeah, I know, Adam. And if you had the godsdamn balls to tell your mom that she wasn't going—"
"If I had the godsdamn balls?" Adam snapped. "Why don't you tell her?"
"I did tell her, and she went in anyway."
"And why didn't you stop her?"
"Really? You're just going to have me grab your mom and pull her out? What are you going to do if she attacks me?"
"She can't even hurt you!" Adam shot back.
"She can hurt my feelings, Adam. What matters more to you? My feelings or hers?"
"Hers!"
"You see, Adam, you never changed. You're still the same asshole that first fell down the Abyss, still treating me like an Omenborn."
Adam glared at Shiv with narrowed eyes. He was no longer drawing his arrow back. “Really. You’re doing this right now?”
"Is the guilt-tripping working?" Shiv asked, raising an eyebrow.
Adam let out a slightly hissed, "Yes."
***
Inside the Garden, Rose shuddered as she heard Harlon’s boy speak to her Adam. She swallowed and tried to compose herself, leaning back against a tree made from titanium bark and copper leaves. The lich—Udraal Thann’s supposed father—watched her, standing as her guard against the orcs.
“If you feel uneasy—” he began.
“It’s not that,” Rose breathed. She swallowed sour spit as she tried not to think about what had happened. “It’s like the past keeps taunting me.”
Valor tilted his head. “How?”
“Adam. Shiv. They sound like Harlon and Roland from years before. Almost exactly. Almost…” Rose tried to calm herself by focusing on her breathing. It didn’t work. “Fuck me. Godsdamned fucking System brought me back just to hit me with trauma.”
“I don’t think the System brought you back,” Valor whispered. “But I think I understand what you mean when you speak of ghosts.”
***
Adam rolled his eyes and drew his arrow back. "Get your mask on. Go across before my courage collapses entirely."
And Shiv did just that. He lifted his helmet and placed the Mask of False Paths on his head. In an instant, his Perfect Semblance triggered, and he was Inquisitor Morgan Hyde: Master-Tier; Path of the Archer, with around twenty Adept Skills and two Master Skills.
Shiv briefly looked through Morgan Hyde's status sheet and reviewed the most critical details one final time. As soon as that was done, he felt Uva's mana strand tap him twice on the mask before receding, confirming her readiness. He shifted the Forest so that no one would be able to directly drop in if they fell into his cape for whatever reason.
With that done, he reached out using his Biomancy and seized the other Inquisitors. As he grasped them using his mana hydras, their bodies didn't resist. Adam fired his arrow in that instant, and a rift opened before them. The Inquisitors remained slack and limp, responding to Shiv’s power as he nudged them through the dimensional pathway. He followed thereafter with a tug on his gravitic field, but before he could cross over entirely, Adam called out, "Shiv."
"Yeah?" he said, turning around.
The Gate Lord's mouth opened, but for a moment, he just managed a nervous sigh. "Just be careful. Be very, very careful. Keep my mom safe. And everyone else. And yourself.”
The Deathless held up a fist. "See you soon, Adam. And if this goes well, Blackedge will get some very unwitting reinforcements, and your dad will get a moment to breathe.”
Shiv didn't turn back again as he ferried the Inquisitors across the pathway. As he reached the other side, he found himself emerging over a sprawling green meadow, overshadowed by the Tidewall. He released the other inquisitors and looked to his left, searching for Margarita Point.
His gaze followed a mountain trail leading upward until finally, the glow of an active gateway lit the pre-dawn sky. With his position confirmed, he began herding the inquisitors along with him, moving them using his Biomancy field. They staggered forward, some of them toppling over, requiring Shiv to reset them several times. He adopted the posture of a starved, exhausted man.
"Come on!" he shouted. "Come on, just a little more! We're almost there, just a little more!"
And after a few minutes of loudly something impacted the ground right in front of him.
Dirt splashed upwards. And as he looked down, he found an arrow embedded right beside his left foot. As he looked up, he saw no traces of the shooter, but sight was only one of his senses. He triggered his new armor's Pheromonic Cipher, and he followed a scent he tasted in the air, a scent that resembled his and his fellow Inquisitors’. It led four hundred meters away, up along the edge of a small hill.
As he activated his Compound Ocular Network thereafter, his sight zoomed in, and he saw a slight shimmer in the air. Six bodies stood there, nearly entirely transparent, aside from a few wispy threads of air painting their contours. They were using Aeromancy to bend light itself, making themselves invisible. Underneath his mask, Shiv smirked as he gained a new Awareness level.
Awareness 39 > 40
"Keep your arms by your sides. Do not move," a voice echoed from the horizon. Shiv frowned as he realized that wasn't the direction the shooters were in, and then he realized there were probably several other groups all around him as well. Where there was one Shadow, there was probably another.