373 Hospitality [I]

Alright, listen up. Today is going to be fucking hell. By the time we clock out, you're going to hate me, I'm going to hate you, I'm going to hate myself, and when we make it home, we're all going to be closer to dead than alive. Now, with our spirits raised good and proper, let's dig into the meat and potatoes that are about to make up our extremely shitty day.

Tonight, we're going to be hosting the Slayers Guild, the Merchants Guild, the local Brewers Guild, the Artisans Collective, the visiting Poly-Magi, and that fat fuck Master Otis—with special mention going to that picky cunt. Now, I know a few of you are planning to ask me for leave. I'm going to ask you first to hold back on that for tonight in exchange for paid time off.

I'm not going to give you some bullshit about how it's a pleasure to serve these people. Some of them are so fucking stupid, you're not sure how they manage to breathe. They're going to boss us around. They're all going to be competitively racing against each other's stupidity to drive us insane, and we're going to have to take it. We're going to have to process their orders, their desires, their nonsense, and we're still going to give them the best experience possible because that's the meaning of hospitality. That's part of cooking the experience. We're giving other people the experience.

Life is fucking hard. Life is ugly, cruel, and often short. In this time, during our lives, we have this one opportunity to have people eat our art. The Swan-Eating Toad offers more than just taste. Here they'll find something that they can't anywhere else. Here, it's a different world. For a few moments, they can let it all go, and as they’re sticking nice and hot and delicious food down their stupid fucking mouths, they’ll be feeding their minds too.

They might not think it now, but someday, somewhere down the line, they'll look back. Maybe they'll be somewhere else entirely, and they'll think to themselves, "Godsdamned, I miss the Swan-Eating Toad. Godsdamned, could those bastards cook. Godsdamned, at least I got to find out what real hospitality and culinary pleasure tastes like before I die."

And that's why I expect all of you to give everything you have. It's not about liking them; it's not about their stupidity. It's about giving them a moment, just one moment in time, where they can think back and experience actual bliss. That's the goal. Will we meet it? Fuck if I know, but we're going to try because why else do we do this shitty fucking job?

Now, all of you keep your chins up and your eyes bright. We might not be soldiers, but we're still fighters. This is our war, our war and their pleasure.

Alright, I'm done talking. We're all getting one smoke break. I'm going out back. You're welcome to join me. When my cigarette’s burned to the butt, we're coming back in, and we're not going out. If you have to take a shit, now's the time to do it.

Our war, their pleasure, our pain.

Alright. See you outside. Except for you, Shiv, you felling smoke-hating creature. You can start with the potatoes right now.

—Georges Archambault to the staff of the Swan-Eating Toad

373

Hospitality [I]

“Be honest, Sister Mettabon, what would you have had me do? Because what you claim to be cowardice seems like basic sensibility to me. If I tried to fight the Challenger like the rest of you, I would have ended up just as mad as the rest of you—and what purpose would that have served? None. None whatsoever. This grudge you're holding against me is nonsensical.”

And that was where Hymn was incorrect: Uva was not holding a grudge against him. Frankly, she wasn't even thinking about him. She had a million other things she had to handle right now with the constant traffic of newcomers spilling into Piety. Since Adam's incapacitation, Still Water and her had split Gate Lord duties, with Uva's priorities falling under administration and immigration. Though she couldn't claim great skill at being a bureaucrat, her Multi-Tasking was so potent that it saw her churn through workloads that would have shattered a thousand lesser Sisters working together without fatigue.

“Truly, the Outside is an unparalleled place of training for office work,”she muttered to herself.

“Ah, yes. Quite. But you are just skimming the surface. I have grown a den of administrative homunculi based on my own flesh and intellect. They’re the ones handling all my paperwork for me. And this skill isn't unique to me. If you wish to increase your efficiency—”

“I would ask that you be silent,”Uva finally responded.“Legend Hymn, are you deliberately obtuse, or do you truly have trouble reading the most basic of social cues?”

“Likely the former,”Harkness’ mind-clone chimed from Uva’s inner consciousness.“He strikes me as a man who practices stupidity when someone tells him no, so that he can eventually force them to comply with his desires; if he were not a Legend, I would have simply told you to void his mind and leave him a vegetable.”

Uva didn't agree with the copy of the former Aviary agent on much, but when it came to Hymn, they were on the same page.

“Well, that wouldn't work either,”Hymn said.“I have a chain of backup minds I have hidden across the Stranger's Garden. If my current consciousness collapses, I will simply transplant a replacement ego hidden across a few thousand Fingerlings. I can show you how to do that too. In fact, that might be one of the simplest things I can show you how to do.”

Uva’s frustration climbed. It was hard to perform a chain of thought scans on all the people arriving at the Gate while someone was blabbing in the back of her head.“If you wish to bribe me, my price is not knowledge, but silence. I'm trying to do actual work right now.”

“Oh, for the System’s sake, if I help you process all these people and dispatch some of my homunculi to take over your bureaucratic duties, will you develop the maturity to speak with me then?”

“No,”Uva replied.“Because I'm not the type of fool to let someone I don't trust take over and potentially compromise the infrastructure of this gate.”

An amused scoff left the Headmaster. In retrospect, he likely could have compromised the Gate with ease, considering his Legendary Psychomancy-Divination Skill Fusion and the sheer quantity of eldritch powers he possessed.“I'll let your puppeteer strings reach into the minds of my homunculi. How about that? I'll let you be a micromanager. Would that alleviate any paranoia or misgivings you have about my good intentions?”

Uva really wanted to say no, but despite how aggravating Hymn was, she did have two things to consider. Firstly, she wasn’t a proper bureaucrat. Secondly, having someone else do the busy work would free up her time and allow her to devote herself to more pressing—

“He's using a Social Skill on you, fool girl,”Harkness hissed.“He's been doing that this entire time. It's the reason why your irritation isn't as enormous as it should be. He's been nibbling away at your willpower so that you can finally give him a yes. It's called 'Weaponized Irritant,' and more than a few of my fellows had it. Pay attention to what people are doing to you.”

Uva's stomach filled with a dense fog of dull anger. Try as she might, though, she didn't have the energy to commit any true hate toward Hymn. He was a scheming, manipulative, cowardly, perverse, and irresponsible creature, but compared to all the monsters she'd faced and all the horrors she'd overcome, he seemed practically harmless. Seemed, because she felt his Psychomancy—he was powerful, tremendously so, yet he seemed too scared or unwilling to use his magic for anything worthwhile.

And so, as Hymn prattled on, offering her more and more conveniences if she would just give all her time to him, she contemplated how to respond. For a moment, she considered slapping him over the head, but she doubted that would do anything; even a beheading was a little less than an inconvenience for those who possessed the Non-Euclidean Physiology Skill—or an evolution of it. On top of that, Uva was never one to apply direct violence when there were better choices available. A rain of lesser inspiration visited her as she considered introducing two of her least-liked people. She had a copy of Harkness' consciousness, and she could make her speak with Hymn on her behalf.

Harkness sputtered.“Is there no end to how vile you are, you little Abyssal sow? Not only do you shred and copy my mind, but now you force me to endure endless hell on your behalf?”

“Yes. It is the only other reason I bother with you at all aside from your vast experiences.”Uva paused.“And to drink pleasure from your frustration.”

“I’m glad your mother died,”Harkness seethed.

Uva just scoffed.“Be mindful of what you say to me, Owl. We both remember what happened to your mother as well, what the other nobles did to punish her for her radical ideas. Let’s not have the dead mother contest—I need you less traumatized so that you remain effective when you are forced on Hymn.”

“I can hear your scheming thoughts, by the way,”Hymn called.

She continued ignoring him as Harkness sprang forth with another intriguing reply.“But what makes you think I would be such a burden on him anyway? He's the type to shrug me off. He cares nothing for my machinations, and even less for my scorn. He is a slab of slothful, loathsome indecency—a very insult to the concept of being a Legend. Whatever conversation we have will be more torture for me than punishment for him. To bother him, we need someone who can break through his facade and overwhelm him with questions and no regard for propriety themselves—someone to hound him incessantly without any effort on our part.”

A greater epiphany slammed down upon Uva like a comet from the heavens. Annoying problems required annoying solutions, and she just so happened to know one of the most annoying Pathbearers in existence.

And thus Uva stretched herself out. Her body became as if a spreading fracture, coiling across the skies of Gate Piety. She crossed over the surface gateway where a group of Sisters was dragging comatose bodies off the bridge—a group of vampire shapeshifters whose minds Uva had crushed a few minutes prior. The crack caused by her presence continued over the concrete slabs that now housed most of the former residents and freed slaves, and then kept going as she passed over the local Arachnae Order garrison in the direction of the shining spire that was Starhawk’s Perch. She stretched and stretched, and no strain came with it. It felt like she could go on forever, like she could spread her body into ever-extending twine that split the gap between the realm of Integration and that which the System coveted beyond.

From there, her body bent in the most anomalous of ways, curving and twisting beyond the breaking point for practically any other in existence and possibly beyond. Her hands and fingers lengthened like fissuring vines, and they slipped past a trio of Sisters, who let out a surprised yell as Uva slithered beside them. “Apologies, Sisters. I need to retrieve a weapon of great potency.”

She ignored their disturbed expressions and removed any ill feelings that inspired within her. It was perfectly understandable; her skill evolutionsweredisturbing, to say the least, and if another Sister was so touched by Outsider energies, she would hold them in high suspicion as well. However, she didn't come to the cafeteria to lament her current state. Instead, she speared through a set of doors, reached across the room, ignored even more looks, and finally wrapped her limbs around that which she came to retrieve.

A lavender-haired Sister four years Uva's junior just blinked as Uva plucked her off the floor like a newborn kitten. “Uh, Sister Uva? You’ve… What’s got you so… long? No, you're more like a rip in a dress. Urgh. I missed you being stretchy more. Can you change back?”

“I'm afraid that's not a question I can answer, Sister Ikki,” Uva muttered. “But there is someone who can. In fact, I need you to speak with that man at length. In great detail. With nothing held back. As much as you like, whatever topics you like.”

And in response to the sadistic grin spreading across Uva's face, Ikki's mind began to sink with fear. “Sister Uva, are you alright?” She reached up to cup Uva's forehead to feel her temperature, but found her hand slipping into the gaps that now composed Uva’s physiology. She nearly lost her entire arm to the Dreamtaker's dimension as feathered snakes and centaurs tried to pull her across. With a casual flex of her power, however, Uva cast the impudent creatures back and solidified her form until she was effectively a crack rather than a wide-open fissure. To Ikki's credit, she simply waved her hand about, whipping off the eldritch colors that stained her gauntlet like she'd accidentally touched some mud. “Well, it's not a fever, but I don't know what it is. Maybe you should go see a Biomancer—a real one who knows what they're doing, not your boyfriend!”

“There's no need, Sister Ikki. I am well.”

Ikki wiggled her limbs like a captured spider as she was dragged through the air at the speed of a flying transport demon in Weave. “You're trying to get me to talk to someone, so no, I'd say you're pretty far from okay.”

“Well, you see, this person is deeply interested in us. He wants to know everything about our culture and our ways. In fact, he came here specifically to talk to the most interesting Umbral I know.” At that, Ikki’s back straightened as she rolled her shoulders. “Well, I wouldn't say I'mthemost interesting. Actually, Sister Uva, aren't you the one who's transforming into a messed-up—”

“Your personality puts mine to shame. This is beyond dispute.”

Ikki pressed her lips together and accepted Uva’s declaration with reluctance. “Are you sure you're okay?”

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

“I will be better than okay in just a moment.”

Scant seconds later, Uva dropped Ikki right in front of the Headmaster, who was standing next to a fountain on a smaller plaza. His shoulder-length white locks were as greasy as Shiv's hair after a week of training in the wilderness, and the short, square beard of the same color around his chin was probably the only well-maintained thing about his entire appearance.

Hymn smirked at Uva's arrival, but then cocked an eyebrow as he gazed upon Ikki. “Who is this?”

“Remember, Sister Ikki, you can talk to him about anything and everything, for as long as you want, even when he says to stop.” And with that, Uva patted Ikki on the head as she prepared to return, but then something nearby caught her eye. A few hundred meters away, on a far larger plaza, were mounds of mithril, gleaming bright and crystalline beneath the azure light of the Gate. Atop those mounds were the four Dragon-Brokers, loudly laughing and conversing with each other, trading jabs and boasts alike. Between them was a colossal tea set, and upon that tea set were Shiv and the Educator for some reason. Candles was there too, and he let out bursts of psychotic laughter every time he projected his flames to heat the tea.

And what exactly is happening here?She delayed her return for a moment as she extended her neck in the direction of Shiv while her body remained in place.

***

Meanwhile, Ikki and the lanky man looked on, neither talking to each other, as they watched Uva's skull elongate further and further until she was a narrow crevice that split the sky.

After three seconds, however, Ikki's attention span perished, and she looked the elf in front of her up and down. “Do all surfacers dress like you and Shiv?”

“Huh?” Hymn frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You know, like you're too poor to afford proper clothes. He keeps getting the stuff his girlfriend gets him shredded, and you wear those wine-stained rags.”

Hymn looked on at her with a blank expression. “These aren’t rags—they’re a coat I made from a curtain I stole. The stains are not from wine either.”

“Oh. Why a stolen curtain?”

“It’s free, I’m cheap, and it bothers the Matriarch of House Purler when she has to replace a curtain every month.”

“Oh, I get it.” Ikki snickered. “But why don’t you just clean the piss stains or whatever? You’re a Legend, right? Even if you don’t smell like one. You can get a self-cleaning enchantment pretty cheaply.”

“The curtains of House Purlerdidhave self-cleaning enchantments,” Hymn declared. “I simply wore them out. Besides, I will get myself a new coat in a few weeks when they've replaced the curtain and I can steal it again.”

A beat followed, and then Ikki nodded. “You know, that makes sense. Things are expensive, so you've got to be economical. Like my dad used to say, 'Even the littlest bit counts.'”

“He sounds like a frugal man.”

“Maybe, but he only said that behind closed doors when he was with my mom.”

Another silence followed. The two stared each other down. Hymn struggled, but the right side of his cheek was tense with effort. He refused to break before she did. Ikki, meanwhile, was blank-faced and utterly indifferent.

“If she thinks you will be enough to distract me, she is terribly wrong, and she has sent you unto a cruel fate,” Hymn warned.

“I mean, you don’t smellthatbad.”

The right side of his lip curved against his will. “Stranger fill my ass with eyes, I’m being challenged by an Adept. You will regret this.”

“Hm. Nah.” Ikki finally smirked and stepped right up to Hymn, smelling a challenge—and unclean curtain-robes. “I don’t really do the regret thing.”

***

The teacups the Dragon-Brokers drank out of were closer to being cauldrons the size of family houses. Each one was made of an alloy so thick it took an unabated stream of fire from Candles to give them a dull red glow. Coiling serpents of golden make curved around the length of each teacup. As the temperature climbed, the serpents came alive, slithering to and fro along the outside like leviathans swimming in a sea of fire. The very air was aglow with embers. Any Pathbearer beneath Heroic-Tier in terms of Toughness and Magical Resistance would have simply vaporized outright within a hundred meters of the space. To the Dragon-Brokers, however, the temperature was nothing worth noting. In fact, they drank on, laughing to each other as they sipped liquid so hot and steaming that it would have melted through cement.

The only two other Pathbearers in the vicinity were equally nonplussed. The Educator was humming and hawing to herself, focused on composing an illustrative draft she dubbedThe Four Gluttons and the Broken Flame. Shiv, meanwhile, found his attention utterly captured by said broken flame, as, for the first time, he realized he'd returned from the Fairwoods with changed eyes.

With his Harbinger, he could see the fragments of Candles’ heart shifting about. He saw the fissures and fractures that outlined the different pieces of the Pyromancer's mind. To make matters more interesting, the broken fragments of his mind snapped back together one by one, the more fire he channeled. It was like the outputting of magic drew his aspects closer to their original totality, and with each lull between his casts, his consciousness splattered, like a pond disturbed by stones that refused to stop plunging in. It seemed that his short-term and long-term memories were constantly being churned and riven apart.

Which tells us a few things,Shiv thought to himself.His emotions and his thoughts are connected to his Pyromancy, meaning he likely has a Social-Psychological Skill Fusion with his Pyromancy. On top of that, though, whatever is disrupting his mind is being burned out or at least held at bay by his Pyromancy. And seeing how his memory is the thing that keeps getting scattered, I think what’s affecting him is deep inside his thoughts.

Before, Shiv regarded Candles as an eccentric enigma, a man that was volatile, unstable, but ultimately reliable, so long as he had something to burn. Now the Harbinger revealed certain truths and deepened Shiv's suspicions. Whatever the Ascendants had done to Candles, it disrupted his mind, but it didn't go far enough. With his Memorization skill or some kind of mental processing skill attached to his Pyromancy, the more he channeled his prodigious magic, the more the psychological neutering wore off. But it never stayed stable. It never stayed fixed. It just scattered again the next time he stopped using his Pyromancy.

“And what does that tell us?”The Harbinger didn't state anything outright. Shiv's subconscious already knew, but he wanted to make the logical connections to confirm his intuition.

Probably that there's still something buried inside his mind. Whatever is affecting him is still stuck inside his memories, is my guess, and if it's there, then I might be able to find it and remove it or break it.

Deductive Reasoning 31 > 33

But Shiv found himself reluctant to leap straight into Candles’ mind. For one, the Harbinger was still fragile and underpowered. Shiv was insulated from his own emotional state via Uva, and so he couldn't draw on his rage as a source of near-endless mana. And Shiv also recalled his experiences diving into the slaver's memories back in the Fairwoods. That had been a mostly stable mind with clear alignments between thoughts and emotions. Emotions he used to find the originating thoughts as a North Star while he was lost. He wouldn't be granted the same convenience inside Candles.

Making a mistake might just be fatal, and it wasn't just his own destruction on the line. If he damaged something essential, then he might cripple Candles—on a level that would make his current personality look downright sage-like.As funny as it is for my less-than-untrained ass to be a technical Legendary Psychomancer, I’m gonna need someone who actually knows how to navigate a mind to help me before I—

“Drinking tea is usually a calm ceremony, unassociated with volcanic eruptions. I see you're determined to bind cataclysms to the most peaceful of events.”

Shiv smirked as Uva’s head poked into view in his periphery. Her face was extended for hundreds of meters, no, even longer than that. It was uncanny looking at her this way. It's like she was a thin strip of herself—a slip between worlds. But aside from being weird, Shiv found her new morphology kind of cool.“Uva, it's like fate itself delivered just when I needed you to come.”

A low snort escaped her mind.“That is ridiculous exaggeration, even for you. But I will not reject the flattery.”

“Yeah, that aside, come take a look at this.”His words drew her in closer, and as their minds connected on a deeper level, he found her rifling through his memories and reviewing what he'd discovered regarding Candles.

A burst of jealousy went off inside her. It was a muted thing, but still there. She regarded him with a hint of mock scorn.“You are right. It is one of the System's finer jokes that you were made a Legend of Psychomancy while not even fully grasping the most basic mechanics of the lore.”

“In my defense, it's more like the Psychomancy got bolted onto my Chronomancy and all my other skills put together. It's there, allowing me to affect minds and break it like it's a physical object, or sacrifice my own memories to break a physical object. My mind magic basically turned into a hammer, a hammer with a very, very targeted pick on its end. But I don't think that's what Candles needs right now. I can't exactly navigate a mind as you can, and I wouldn't describe myself as precise in any way other than when I'm in the kitchen. But with you here, maybe I might be willing to take a leap into his mind.”

She went quiet as she studied the maladies assailing Candles’ mind. A reluctance took hold inside her almost immediately.“No, at least not yet. We have a few problems at hand. Firstly, therapeutic Psychomancy is something that cannot be done in haste, and it's also something I'm terribly unqualified for. If you are willfully impotent, then I am at best a bumbling layman when it comes to fixing a mind. The art is vast, and both of us have gained more power than we have expertise. Your suspicions that you might do more harm than good to his mind are likely correct. In fact, I would dare say that both of us together would simply cause his mind to break apart even faster.”

That took Shiv by surprise.“His problem is that bad?”

Not a few steps away, standing at the center of the colossal tea set, Candles laughed aloud. His voice took on a psychotic shriek as he shouted: “Heat the cups, burn the cups, melt the cups, burn the tea!” There was a lyrical quality to his voice, almost like he was singing a lullaby to himself.

Making the moment more surreal was how all four of the Dragon-Brokers began clapping along, each of their scaled hands slamming together in explosive thunderclaps that, too, would have vaporized anyone beneath Heroic-Tier toughness.

“Burn the tea, little fire!”Know-Nothing cheered on, adjusting the monocle he wore for this special occasion.“Burn the tea!”

“A Legendary artifact to you if you manage to melt these cups!”Yellowbelly bellowed in challenge.“We had these forged in a specially made dimension of fire and brimstone. If you can surpass the heat it took to craft these cups, then we’ll take you on as a special administrator for a municipality! A small one.”

But Candles cared not one whit about being the ruler of anything. He found joy in the small things—the small things being rampant pyromania. “So bright…”

Uva cringed.“As absurd as it sounds, he's still stable. At least he has some concept of what he's doing, even if that concept is burning specific things. He knows what specific things are, and he can respond coherently to orders or suggestions. But if we exacerbate his instability, he might just become a bomb. A bomb that wouldn't stop outputting Pyromancy until everything around him is less than cinders or someone has to resolve the problem of his existence.”

The thought of needing to put Candles down didn't sit well with Shiv at all.

“It doesn't appeal to me either,”Uva continued.“So the rules here are that we cannot rush. We need to find someone with significant mastery over Psychomancy. Someone who knows how to—”

“Tulveg?”Shiv suggested. The vampire’s name made Uva flinch.“Yeah, I know, I know. But heisa Legendary Psychomancer, so maybe we can ask him. Maybe he's done something like this before.”

“I… I’m not certain.”

“It won’t hurt to ask.”But it did bother Uva; the very thought of involving her mother’s supposed paramour filled her with so much existential revulsion Shiv regretted ever bringing the idea up.“Okay, it might hurt to ask. Sorry, but… Does Weave have any Legendary Psychomancers specialized in mind healing? Because I don’t think a well-trained Master is going to cut it here with how chaotic his mind is.”

A very Shiv-like grunt left Uva; the sound tickled him.“I'd say it's more than chaotic. Do you see how his memories are bending toward the center and plunging? It's not something impacting him; it's something being drawn down. There are more and more of his surface thoughts that are being impacted deep into his subconsciousness. This brings us to another issue: You have empathetic-psionic awareness. I do not. In fact, I dare say that it might take years of searching, or more likely, deliberately training, for someone to develop something that can compare to the Harbinger. I can sense the flow of his mind somewhat, but I know nothing of his emotions. Without you here and your memories to consult, I would have missed most of these details—for they don’t even exist before my gaze.”

She sighed.“I suspect your earlier guess wasn't entirely correct. Whatever is affecting him isn't just memory-based but probably connected from memory to emotion to Pyromancy. As for the why and how? I cannot give you an answer. I can scarcely fathom the complexity of such a mental maiming, or why it was necessary to begin with.”

“Yeah, that sounds like Maiden. Or Enoch the Builder.”As Shiv recalled the Ascendants, he thought about Rebis and some of the other escapees. Then he regarded the Educator, who was so deep into her artwork she barely noticed his attention. When she turned to meet his stare, he used his Harbinger to cast a telepathic thought to her.“I might want to talk about some of the people you still have inside your tome later. It's got to do with Candles. I’m thinking about how to fix him, but I might want to take a look at the others to get a better understanding.”

Her expression didn't change. In the end, she said nothing as she returned to her work.

“Right, great talk,”Shiv grumbled internally.

“And what's going on between you and her?”Uva asked.

“Let's just say I think I'm pulling her away from Udraal. Wouldn't exactly call her a friend yet, but maybe she's not as much of a potential enemy as before. Can't claim for certain, but I think I get her a little more.”Shiv went back to frowning at Candles.“Which is more than I can say for this one here. I guess I really, really overestimated how easy people are to fix when breaking them is just a simple thing.”And that drew more memories to the fore. He remembered the time he spent as an assisting medic at the Academy hospital, how many lurking dangers could assail a body, how much effort it took to save someone.

“Such is how it goes, such is how it will always be,”Uva declared. Something ground inside her; she was struggling against herself to make a decision.“I don’t want to speak to Tulveg.”

“Yeah, that’s understandable—”

“But I’m going to.”

“…you don’t have to.”

“It’s not just Candles. Hymn. Hawgrave. The Dreamtaker’s evolution. My changes. They’re uncomfortable, but avoiding them doesn’t make my problems go away. It might eventually make me more like Roland, though.”She winced.“Don’t tell him I said that. I do not think lowly of him, but what happened between him and you was as much a sin of neglect as it was a thing born of trauma and hate. The System doesn’t care, so we have to. Or it gets worse. It always does. We do not ask for our wounds, but we are responsible for ourselves and our emotions after.”

Shiv looked at Uva, and his earlier smirk returned, but this time it was more pride than pleasure. He wrapped an arm around the narrow crevice that was her head. “And that’s why I love you.”

A faint blush developed on her face, and it bled out from two spots in a flicker of anomalous colors. The flicker was then swallowed by a wave of blinding brightness as Candles flung himself hip-first into Shiv and Uva. He wrapped himself around them as if they were a pole he desired to climb, and he giggled with maniacal glee. “You two are real hard to burn. Like that. Like you. Thank you.”

The Deathless and the Seeker stiffened at once.

“I can feel something hot and sagging pressed against my forehead.”

“It’s probably his flaming balls,”Shiv stated casually.

Uva shuddered.“Are you—”

“I’m pretty sure, since his dick is melting through my side. It really fucking hurts.”