Achemiss hated this wretched world.
It was literally the only thing in existence holding him back. His only vulnerability.
And his present circumstances? They had confirmed his every fear. He’d never expected the one to send him here was Ancient Black, also, impossibly, known as Ignatius Julian Dunai.
A new ascendant. Practically a baby. And yet, he’d somehow developed two additional affinities since ascending. Achemiss didn’t care how Ian had networked to his front door. He’d thought Dunai rather simple when it came to social skills, but it was within the realm of the possible.
Three affinities? Becoming an ancient?
It was worse than a smack in the face. It was almost worse than being shunted from Eternity. It was the darkest, cruelest reminder that Achemiss wasn’t anything without the contents of his void storage–which was, of course, in Dunai’s clutches.
Achemiss’s constructed face exuded none of his seething rage at being forced to cooperate with Sere’s decadent, weak practitioners. He was a dragon forced to compromise with ants.
He plastered on an impassive expression as Clara Belvaire, practically the only regular in this forsaken place, led him through the blocky, uninspired corridors and into the armored lift. His hands itched to take what he wanted and depart, leaving the base a smoldering wreck, but he suppressed the urge.
His thoughts had become far too murderous lately. Too impulsive. Too... bloodthirsty, even for him.
He blamed Dunai for what he’d done. For not just seizing the source of his power and stranding him, but for the horrifying damage the callous man had inflicted on Achemiss’s body and soul.
Clara was an interesting one. One of the leads of the Infinity Loop project, and for her to keep that status as a regular, she had to be extraordinary. Real genius–not the kind Beginning practitioners were blessed with–had always intrigued Achemiss. He’d been intelligent and cunning enough to rise above everyone else during his era as a mortal, but he’d always known that he wasn’t a genius. Not like Clara.
Not like that idiot savant Dunai.
The elevator opened, leading them to the third most fortified room he’d seen, after the arrival hangar and the chamber where they’d been keeping Ari’s corpse. Two guards stood outside of it, irrelevant low affinity fodder. They stepped aside and the door opened like an iris. Clara walked in, Achemiss following on her heels. The door shut.
It was only the two of them.
He gave her a smile. “So, Clara–how does this work?”
He could see her body’s reaction to being alone with him. All the markers of fear, but also... defiance. She rejected her own insecurity.
“It’s a simple procedure,” she said, pawing at a slab of shiny material girdered to the back wall. It was chunky and hideous, lacking the aesthetic of modern devices like glossYs. It notably wasn’t a projection. Achemiss considered that it might be the first actual screen he’d ever seen since returning, with tactile buttons. Clara didn’t seem particularly familiar with it, her fingers often redoing keystrokes as she made input errors.
“Who made this?” Achemiss asked, genuinely curious. The technology was so different, he had to ask... “Was it another returned ascendant?”
Clara’s body reacted again, her shoulders shuddering. “I don’t know. Didn’t you see it the first time you had this procedure done?”
His gaze became icy. He let her see it. “I didn’t come to the facility in person, last time.”
The hours following his escape from Dunai had been some of the worst he’d ever experienced, more harrowing than the day the descendant had come to judge him. It was the closest he’d ever brushed with death.
Not just because of the state of his everything, but because of what he’d needed to do. The position he’d been forced into. He’d been forced to rely on others’ self-interest–that helping him would be worth more to them than contributing to his demise.
Sere hadn’t been the first he’d reached out to. But in the end, he’d thought they had the most to gain, the least to lose. They were most invested in the Infinity Loop. Not only did they need him to further its development, but they needed him not to help anyone else, so they would keep their technological edge.
To their credit, they hadn’t betrayed him, at least not yet. They would be unwise to do so, given what he’d told them about the loop’s true nature. They must have run some experiments of their own that were unable to disprove his claims about soul corruption–they would be fools to trust him outright.
But as they’d said when he came to parlay at their little assembly–they hadn’t succeeded at finding any worthy necromancers capable of corroborating his assertions that soul corruption was real, and certainly none capable of researching ways to stop the corruption, as if such a thing were possible.
That was the only reason he’d deigned to meet with them again. They still needed him. They also knew that he wasn’t vulnerable like before. If they betrayed him, not only would he be waiting for it, but he’d retaliate with disproportionate force.
It would be utterly irrational for them to act against me, Achemiss told himself. Utterly irrational.
Belvaire’s eyes rolled into the back of her head as her body jolted. She exhaled sharply and collected herself. “Ian Dunai,” she said, “I’m going to tell you the coordinates of the rifts. You may choose to do whatever you wish with them–even forgetting them entirely, or bestowing the locations as gifts. They will fully belong to you, and all knowledge of them held by the Sere Consortium will be completely erased. After we leave this room, I will no longer remember the locations entrusted to me as an intermediary.”
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“This is satisfactory to me,” he said.
And then she shared them, clearly enunciating each digit without referencing anything, like the locations had been burned into her mind.
Five unsullied rifts, now his.
She smiled, though he saw... anxiety. Fear, greater than any she’d shown before.
Why? Was she afraid that, having now received the rift information, he would turn on all of them and abscond with the classified subject?
He didn’t think Ian Dunai had a reputation for being such a hooligan, but then again... people acted funny around ascendants.
The door opened. They walked out. Clara’s body language eased slightly, as though she was inhaling fresh air after being stuck in a room of noxious fumes. The guards fell back into place in front of the door, and Belvaire’s two escorts flanked Achemiss.
Maybe she’d been relieved to no longer be alone with the man who’d gotten what he came for. Really, Achemiss could think of countless reasons to explain away the woman’s behavior. Everything he’d noticed had been barely noticeable, anyway–she hadn’t outwardly appeared fearful or anxious. It was only her vital energy that betrayed her.
Clara... really was an interesting one.
He could just ignore what he’d noticed. It’s what many ascendants would do, arrogant warriors like Ari. Achemiss would never let himself be so careless in the mortal world.
So he kept his impassive expression, showing only a hint of satisfaction as they set back off. “The classified subject’s items?” he ventured.
“Ascendant Dunai, they were not included in the negotiations,” Clara said. “If you wish to discuss them with General Kelvanne, I can bring you to him.”
The man on Achemiss’s right turned his head. “Dr. Belvaire, it won’t be necessary to return to see General Kelvanne. We’ll go to the artifactory.”
Belvaire inclined her head. “General Bellestoy, please lead us–I don't know the way.”
The man gave her a radiant smile, but his eyes were sharp, guarded. “I was planning to. You don’t have access.”
The artifactory was situated one floor higher on the lift than the chamber holding Ari’s body, not that the floors actually corresponded with spatial order location. Achemiss couldn’t see beyond the walls, but he had a strong hunch that the way the lift shaft curved and changed direction was to disorient its passengers.
The artifactory might be one floor away from Ari, but Achemiss would bet that they were on opposite ends of the facility. He had to admit, he was curious what the room had in store. Did they have other artifacts there than just Ari’s equipment? If so, did they really think he’d leave without taking anything he found interesting?
The room that marked the end of their trek was significantly less protected than the others, just a normal, thick door with an obvious airlock.
Bellestoy turned and gave Achemiss a sharp nod. “Ascendant Dunai, this is the artifactory. Only I will escort you inside.” He stepped up to the door and lights along its top and bottom glowed. He manipulated the airlock mechanism, then pulled the door open, entering first.
The other man, Fitson, closed the door behind them.
The room was awash in darkness, only dim, violet lights illuminating the walls where various objects rested. Achemiss could tell that many were broken, but still–his eyes clung to each.
He saw her mace at the back of the room, the latest addition. Next to it was a pristine suit of armor mounted on a black, matte mannequin that seemed to absorb the backlighting, such that the armor almost seemed to hover in place.
He went to Ari’s belongings last, starting at the beginning of the room and moving clockwise. He’d thought the artifactory would be more... scientific. A place for investigating the artifacts, their abilities, and so on. This room seemed more like an armory, or a room for showing off. Maybe Sere occasionally brought high ranking foreigners here.
He supposed it was silly to think that they’d be able to do much else than show artifacts off. Mortals didn’t have ascendant energy. To them, the artifacts really were nothing more than show pieces.
“Our researchers spent two months investigating the mace and armor,” Bellestoy suddenly said. Achemiss hid his surprise. “The interior of the armor was covered in End inscriptions. Nothing about them seemed particularly noteworthy. The inscriptions were exquisite, but... the effects they could produce were mundane. In many ways, inferior to the technologically advanced armor coming out of the East.”
Achemiss didn’t fall for the obvious attempt at distracting him away from the other artifacts. It’s not like there were that many of them. There were ten aside from Ari’s, though half were destroyed, no good for anything but looking.
“Do you need artifacts, Ascendant Dunai?”
He froze. “Artifacts aren’t a rare commodity. But I’m a collector, and each of these has a history.”
Bellestoy smiled, though Achemiss could see heightened tension in his shoulders from the flexing of his muscles. Had he said something?
Oh. He’d mentioned being a collector. That was a bit of a slip. How very unlike him. And the worst part was, killing Bellestoy wasn’t a valid option. Achemiss wasn’t stupid. There were two generals at the compound. The higher of the two, General Kelvanne, was here because of him. The other, Bellestoy, was likely the commanding officer of the entire compound. He had been happy to let Belvaire lead the way, acting as a simple escort up until the end. It was an intelligent deception.
Achemiss had let himself make a small mistake in front of such a man, one who probably never left this lightless place, one who Achemiss would have extreme difficulty killing without inviting scrutiny.
It was infuriating.
Abandoning his innocent sightseeing, he walked over to Ari’s belongings and snatched them, depositing them into a void storage ring that he’d fashioned himself. One of the lovely boons of being a Dark practitioner and a skilled necromancer was that he could kidnap a powerful End practitioner and either control them physically, or turn them into a mindless construct that retained part of the practitioner’s abilities. Combined with his Dark affinity, he could make a near unlimited number of void storages.
And the number he had on him now, and their contents...
The thought was almost enough to salvage his dark mood. It made him want to laugh. When would these mortals ever learn? Whether it was Achemiss, the real Ian Dunai, or even pathetic Soolemar... A Death practitioner was the most terrifying adversary of all.
Each one was a one-man army, self-replenishing, and beyond cheap to construct. He’d seen Beginning practitioners touting their drone swarms and autonomous legionnaires, even using necromancy to implant their technological constructs with souls.
Powerful, but ultimately limited by production capacity and materials. Besides, who could forget the crowning destructive achievement of Death? The crucible of souls themselves, the corrupting Infinity Loops. Insidious. Unstoppable. Just like death itself.
For a moment, Achemiss wondered what he was doing here. He needed rifts, and he wanted Ari, but this all felt so silly. Not even just beneath him, though it was. This trip felt... oddly pointless.
But it was the safer, surer route to recovery, escape, and of course... visiting revenge upon Ian Dunai.
Achemiss sighed softly. “Let’s go back to the classified subject.”