Students of the Phoenix, my job here, as headmaster, is not to get you to Adept by the time you graduate. It is not to ensure that you become Masters in ten years, five years, or whatever ridiculous sum of time you imagine. It is not to make sure you eventually become Heroes. It is not to make sure that you become Legends after a century and become icons of the Republic. My job is none of those things, for none of those things can be guaranteed.

Look at me, and look upon each other. Know that, once upon a time, I was like you. I stood amongst my peers, people of my age, dreaming of a future, staring at another man giving the same speech, except there was one difference: My grandmaster lied to me. He promised us power. He promised us prestige. He promised us glory and victory and more.

I promise you nothing, for the System will promise you nothing. So you should expect nothing. You should expect nothing, but you should yearn. You should always strive. You should perform to the best of your ability, to overcome every challenge you face, but to be shaken by all the failures you encounter. And when that is done, accept where you are, wherever that may be. Because the great lie that most hear is that they will be glorious, that their futures will be grand, that they will be the victors. I assure you, to the north and the south, there is a man like me—a man, an elf, a goblin, an automaton, a Jotun, a demon—and they tell their youngers and lessers the same lies that my former Grandmaster told me. And when two absolute lies collide, when two Pathbearers believe they will prevail, only one outcome can reign as truth, and there is no guarantee it will be yours.

Steel yourselves today. Hold your heads up high with pride. You are disciples of Phoenix Academy. It takes great effort and great potential for you to arrive here. Understand that you shine brighter than most Pathbearers already, but to shine is to invite harm. And with harm, death looms. Disaster looms. I will fashion you into the finest Pathbearers you can be, but I promise you no more than that, and you should expect no more than that.

For hope is both elixir and poison for the soul. Be mindful of how you drink.

-Legend-Headmaster Hades Hymn, Phoenix Academy Commencement Speech

205 (I)

Academy [III]

There was something deeply impressive and also disturbing in how fast the Neath liaison managed to steal eight bodies from a morgue. The fact that this feat was managed while Harlock was active, no less, made Shiv all the more wary of who he was dealing with.

When the liaison stepped in, he was accompanied by a small group of dimensionals; humanoid stone dimensionals, shaped from crumbling rocks and jutting crystals. There were ten of them: two orc-sized ones that seemed to serve as the liaison's personal bodyguards, while the others were closer to a human in size.

They neatly placed the stolen bodies four by four within the hidden crafting chamber, and Shiv saw that the deceased still had tags attached to their feet. But his gaze didn't linger on them for long. Instead, he found himself taking in the liaison. The man stood tall, and there was something faintly elven in his features.

There was a point to his ears and a near-white gleam to his irises. He wore a polished leather doublet with long formal slacks and expensive-looking leather boots. A short sword hung at his waist, and a gem was embedded in the hilt, giving off a golden glow. The time magic radiating from the sword was Master-Tier, but the Pyromancy possessed by the liaison himself was his true edge. If Shiv had to guess, he was a Heroic Pyromancer. Powerful, but still no more than a bushfire before Candles's raging inferno—even if the Legendary Pyromancer of their group was currently snoring in the corner of the room.

"The bodies, as you requested," the liaison said. His voice was smooth and quick, with little accent Shiv couldn't place. As the man spoke, Shiv noticed how his skin didn't move quite right. There was an uncanny aspect to his features, like he was more rubber than flesh. Adam also noticed, from the narrowing of his eyes.

Merrielmel barely held back a squeak as he looked away from the corpses. A gagging sound followed, and the elven Enchanter tried to keep himself composed. He almost doubled over, regardless.

Concelhaunt scoffed and stepped in front of his colleague. In his hands was a gleaming mask, reforged of new alloys and infused with a brilliant glow. Its repairs hadn't been finalized yet, and Shiv still needed to pick a replacement enchantment to make up for the Mind Shield, but first, something compelled him to see the bodies. Something compelled him to look upon the face of a child whose life he was about to steal. Child, he thought to himself. Like Adam said earlier, I'm practically their age. But I still feel different. Still feels like they shouldn't be here. They shouldn't be dead. But since when did the System ever give a shit about sparing children?

"How did you manage to do this?" Irons asked. The instructor came to a halt just beside Shiv, and he felt that the man's body language screamed with barely-restrained violence.

"Favors and dexterity, mostly," the liaison replied. "The crisis unfolding made things easier, especially with the city's greatest powers all focused on controlling the breakout at the volcano. A most fortuitous circumstance." The man smiled, offering a cruel grin to Shiv, and the Deathless realized he wasn't going to like this man very much. He sighed and strode toward the bodies.

"I want to see their faces," he said. As soon as he did, the earth dimensionals responded. Despite possessing paws meant to rip and rend, they peeled the sheets covering the deceased with considerable grace. An involuntary grunt escaped Shiv afterward. Whether it was a noise uttered in respect or discomfort, he couldn't fully say himself, but Irons was right. These children went down fighting. Several of them had deep wounds lining their skulls and faces. Shiv was still a novice when it came to the finer aspects of biology, but he had been wounded and had inflicted wounds in return. He knew what axe blows looked like. He knew what a thumb would do when it was forced into an eye socket. He knew which teeth broke first when one tried to wrench a jaw free. He knew what crushed windpipes resembled.

The Jotun were brutal fighters. Shiv could tell that immediately. He could also tell they weren't nearly as methodical or precise as the orcs. Too many cuts were off. Slices running from necks and splitting clavicles. Spears holes through cheeks rather than necks or the brain. Sloppy. Close enough to be lethal attempts, so they weren't trying to torture these kids, but sloppy.

Practical Metabiology 43 > 44

Three of the dead were female, and Shiv discounted them immediately. Helix, however, did not. "I think you should pick that one." The orc Biomancer pointed at a blonde-haired girl who stared blankly toward the ceiling. Her nose was practically driven into the back of her head, the result of taking a hammer blow head-on. The disturbing part was how soft and nice the rest of her skin was. It seemed to glow like a pearl, even in the dim ambience of the crafting chamber.

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She was an elf, and there was such sadness in her eyes that Shiv felt his chest tighten. No terror, just the final despair before the end.

"I'm serious," Helix kept going. "It could be to your advantage. It will give you insight into being something you're not, and, potentially, you might be able to lure some other students to you, especially the males. You humans have such a strange way of breeding and imprinting on one another. Imagine gaining a Seduction Skill! What a ridiculous boon that might be for you."

Adam audibly gagged. "Stop talking. You're going to make me sick."

He wasn't the only one. Shiv's stomach revolted at the suggestion. It was too close to what Udraal did, and the Deathless wouldn't make a very good girl. He didn't make a very good spy in general. A feeling of déjà vu came over him, and then he pushed past it when he realized it wasn't déjà vu, but a memory. Some time back, early on when he, Uva, and Adam first became a team, they did something like this: scouring a pit of corpses to find someone he could pretend to be.

"Have you no decency?" Irons spat at Helix. The other orcs laughed, and the captain directed his fiercest scowl at them. But where Irons would have been incredibly intimidating for a student or even most individuals, orcs were connoisseurs of savagery and brutality. They nursed themselves upon foul deeds and depraved acts of domination.

Psycho-Cartography: Put a stop to this. One of the orcs is going to provoke Irons, and he's going to oblige them. It's inevitable. They want a fight. They want an excuse to bleed someone, and he likely wants to partake as well, if only to regain some control over his spiraling life. Irons is a good man, but he's a warrior, and he's caught up in a black conspiracy that tears at the heart of everything he believes. It won't take much of a push.

"I told you guys before," Shiv said, cutting everyone off. "If anyone starts a fight, I'm going to end it. Orcs, stop bothering him. You guys want to hurt someone or torture something? I'm available in a while. And Helix. It's going to be time for us to resume our classes. While we got time, right?"

"Ah, so you remembered," Helix said. His voice rose a slight pitch, and he nodded along, pleased. "Good. There is hope for you to become a practitioner yet." Just like that, the atmosphere changed. The orcs were no longer preparing to tease and taunt the angry Captain. Now, all their gazes fell on their Insul, and they laughed and cheered among themselves, as if old friends at a banquet.

"What are you talking about?" Irons muttered under his breath. He was utterly confused about why Shiv would just give himself to the orcs, and then Adam slipped by, leaning in to explain a few things to his former mentor.

Shiv patrolled the rest of the bodies. "None of the girls," he said. At once, the earth dimensionals drew the sheets back over them.

"I have a few suggestions," the liaison said. "These two." He gestured. Shiv followed the liaison's index finger and found himself comparing two options. The first was a narrow-faced boy with a brand over his left eye and a deep chasm lining his throat. His trachea was missing.

Judging from his wiry frame, Shiv suspected that he was looking at someone who walked the Path of the Scout or Shadow, maybe even Thief. The other boy was larger. He wasn't nearly as tall and overwhelming as Shiv, but there was some muscle on his body, and more importantly, there was a certain robustness to his skin. It glistened as if sun-kissed metal, and he exhibited no obvious wounds. In fact, Shiv wasn't sure how that one had died at all.

"This here is Sven Sealark," the liaison explained, introducing the narrow-faced boy first. "He is the youngest son of House Sealark, a minor noble family in the Old Brunswick region. Though not major players in the capital, he still holds considerable pull due to being selected for Phoenix Academy under circumstances of Martial Meritas."

"And what does that mean?" Shiv asked directly.

"Martial Meritas means that the student has earned his place at Phoenix Academy through a remarkable feat of arms or magic performed in combat," Adam explained. The Young Lord rounded his shoulders slightly and stood a little taller. "It was how I was selected as well."

"No shit?" Shiv said. "Did you shoot the head off of a monster or something from halfway across town?"

"Not quite, but not that far off, actually. I put an arrow through the eye of a Ruin Wasp while we were nest-clearing somewhere in Old Santabar." The Gate Lord tried not to sound too proud, but he was, and it was clearly a good memory for him. "My father, I, and some of our retainers went out. The nest, it was getting a bit too close to the town, and they had also attacked several villages. Caravans too. My father didn't want to bring me along initially, but I raised such a fit that I—what?" Adam was cut off by Shiv chuckling. "What?"

Shiv tried to contain his amusement. "No, just... It's you. It's very you, you know, to throw a tantrum because you weren't invited to fight something."

Adam blinked, and he seemed caught between a shrug of indifference and a scowl. "I just felt responsible. I'm the Young Lord of Blackedge, you know."

Shiv snorted. "Yeah, you are. To the bone."

"We have duties," Adam said.

"I know, and you take them pretty seriously, Adam." Shiv folded his arms. "And I suppose that being Martial Meritas gives you some special benefits?"

"Yes, it puts you in the Advanced Tiers."

"Advanced Tiers?" Shiv asked. "What's that? Some kind of special course?"

"It means Advancement Tiers," Irons said, carrying on where Adam left off. "The Advancement Tiers give students more opportunities to select coursework beyond what is typically deemed acceptable for their current skill range and academic year. It also allows them to choose specific mentors, to grant them additional opportunities for practical experience and training."

"It also lets you live in Atlas Hall," Adam said. The Gate Lord sighed as his eyes closed. "The facilities there, Shiv… It was something to dream of. The company, the courtyard, the fountains…"

Now Shiv's attention was fully piqued. "The facilities were that good, huh? Well, I think they're leaving just the right kind of bait for me, Adam." But then he considered something else, something that left him feeling burdened if he were to steal this child's identity. "You said he was from a house? Does he have any living family in the capital, or back at home?"

"He does," the liaison replied. "A mother and a younger sister. They are far away, not directly in the capital, but they should be on their way down. They have been notified of his unfortunate demise, and as such, we will need to make arrangements to justify your miraculous resurrection, so to speak."

The liaison grinned. Shiv didn't. The liaison stopped grinning.

As much as Martial Meritas appealed to Shiv, he really didn't want to steal the corpse of someone who still had loved ones. With his track record as a spy, it was likely that this body would be burned within a span of days. If that happened, he really didn't want the surviving family of this poor kid to be caught in the crossfire.

"And the other one?" Shiv asked. "How'd he get into the academy?"

The liaison's gaze settled on the larger corpse. "Ah, Marcus Unblood."

"Unblood? Strange name. He part of some noble house too?"

"No. Unbloods are simply what the people in that region call bastards. They are unblooded, so to speak. He may well be of direct descent from noble houses, just not recognized or wanted."

Shiv looked down at the hard-faced boy with a frown. Already, he felt a sense of kinship growing between them. "You and I both, huh?" Shiv said under his breath. Then, he paused and shook his head. "Well, up until recently. Now everyone wants a piece of me, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but I kind of miss being a social pariah."

Marcus didn't say anything because Marcus was a corpse. But if he could, Shiv imagined the boy would agree. He was a complainer. He had that face. He had that vibe. Shiv could tell.

"He did not enter on the basis of Martial Meritas. Instead, he got in due to the Wild Card Program that has been recently instituted." The liaison cocked his head. "Unfortunately, he will not get to experience that."

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