Chapter 48: The Burden of Knowledge

SHADOW

There were few people Shadow wanted to find less than Venom, but there the monster was, “collecting” kids from a juvenile work home. The man still wore his {Defiler} title and had grown three whole levels since their last meeting, which just proved that overindulging his vices served Venom far better than proper training. Despite how much Shadow’s Path thrived on knowledge, understanding the monster’s Path wasn’t worth the growth. It was the one thing he wished he didn’t know.

For a mere moment, as he stood motionless with daggers in-hand, Shadow considered the cost of ending Venom there and then. It would likely be easy, but messy. So messy. And messes could be tracked. He dismissed the thought, scolding himself. It won’t push my Path at all, even if it would feel good. He hadn’t been tracking Venom, after all. No, he’d still been aiming for the man called Brightside, and to get there, he’d followed Timetwister, who for some reason had come to treat with Venom.

Unsurprisingly, she’d moved on as quickly as possible. Shadow should do the same... but his daggers whispered to him so sweetly. They wanted to end that plague of a life then and there.

We have more important things to do, he reminded them.

The task at hand was Timetwister, so he left the monster to his habits. After all, it was risky to let time get away from you when tracking a chronomancer.

Luckily, he was able to follow her trail easily enough, since he knew what to look for: paths that were slightly out of sync, grasses that continued blowing the wrong way when the wind shifted, flutters of feathers that happened before a bird took to the air, and as he drew nearer there were even leaves frozen mid-fall. He could tell this was her domain beginning to form, being a tier 4, but this was not how Shadow would ever choose to develop his Path. The risk of discovery was simply too great.

With as quickly as Shadow could move, she couldn’t outrun him if it came to that. Not without manipulating the flow of time more actively. And he didn’t plan on giving her a reason to do that. He was content to follow at a distance that even a skill was unlikely to bridge on its own. It also helped that she’d avoided taking any portals, though they clearly could have hastened her travels. That she was moving the slow way told Shadow that she wanted to leave no trail behind. If Shadow lost her, even he might not be able to find her again.

He finally caught sight of her just as she crossed the boundary into the Sovereign’s domain. It bothered Shadow that no matter how many times he had been there before, he still received the god’s ridiculous “welcome” notification.

You have entered the domain of the god known as the Sovereign.

You are now under the effects of the following auras:

[Encouraged Growth] +25% experience gained from quests and contracts, and -15% material costs when crafting. This bonus is tripled when constructing buildings or roads.

[Grow and Flourish] All food and water needs are reduced by 50%.

[Perpetua] The city of growth awaits you, and holds more benefits. If you seek it, you shall be offered the way.

The thought of returning to ‘The City That Always Grows’ made his skin crawl. Once, he’d been curious enough to try engaging with that final property, only to see a temporary portal appear immediately before him. That should have been where he drew the line, but he had still needed to know. He remembered standing before that portal, feeling a portion of the god’s attention focused directly onto him. The presence had not wavered until Shadow had stepped through the portal.

And then, because everything in the Sovereign’s domain led there, he found himself in Perpetua.

Every portal, every road, practically every thought. Everywhere he’d looked, he’d felt the Sovereign. It had been inescapable--until long after he’d left the ever-expanding walls of the city.

Shadow had no idea how the god did it, but he was certain of one thing: he had no desire to earn the Sovereign’s enmity. He would rather stay as far from that blasted city as possible.

But the more he followed Timetwister, the clearer it was that she was heading to Perpetua. Until, at some point before reaching its outward boundaries, she adjusted her course slightly.

While it was true that Perpetua was called ‘The City That Always Grows’ for a good and very literal reason, it didn’t grow in all directions equally. Its eastern edge was actually a mountain, which the city had never tried to incorporate or rise above, perhaps due to the vast resources extracted from its many wrinkles and depths. It was toward that mountain that Timetwister’s course shifted.

Shadow’s curiosity spiked, and it rose higher still as his target circumnavigated the city entirely, not ever reaching the distance where a guard might see her. She slowed her approach to the mountain as well, actually showing signs of caution the nearer she got.

Not that she had any hope of discovering Shadow trailing her. He had too many skills and abilities at work, even passively, for her to notice without focused consideration.

She led him into a mine entrance, carefully hidden at the farthest side of the mountain’s reach, where Shadow had to give serious thought to his next steps. As his former teammate approached the mine, she gave a hand signal, clearly marking her authority. Not a minute later, Shadow did the same, while wearing his cowl down low over his face--an act that he knew would obscure not only his appearance but also diminish his presence in their memory.

Then he was in a cave of interspersed darkness and flickering torches. He felt immediate relief, having feared that the way would be lit far more fully. But no, this was like a playground to him, and he was in his element. He followed the path Timetwister had trod with the ease of a child at recess.

The first strangeness was how mildly the mineshaft descended. The second was its uncanny width, and that it did not branch. There were still rails, of course, for carts to travel along, but there were two sets. One for carts going forward, and another for carts returning. The latter seemed always to carry dirt and stone. The former seemed to be empty. It was into one of these that Shadow slid himself, only to realize that they, too, were carrying cargo.

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His cart, despite being rather large, held only one small device that was some sort of mix of technology and magic. More curious still, it was wrapped in a stasis field. It wasn’t quite as elegant as something Timetwister herself might have created, but the techniques involved did suggest that she’d helped in designing it. Whatever was inside the magical package, it was being held outside of time. Naturally, Shadow tried to [Identify] it.

[ ? ]

It had been years--no, decades--since Shadow’s heavily-upgraded [Identify] had been totally blanked. Even Brightside had returned some information. A part of him wanted to dig into the magical stasis immediately, consequences be damned, but he also knew that there were forces at play here that might notice such an act. He couldn’t risk discovery until he had more answers.

But I will figure this mystery out too, he promised himself. There seemed to be a steady flow of carts in both directions, and he resolved to snag one of the devices on his way out.

Riding in the cart didn’t actually increase the speed of his descent into the mine, but it definitely made it easier to slip unnoticed past the dozens of people that were stationed along the way. They were merely guards, and they all held either weapons or spells at the ready. Too few possessed enhanced perceptions, which pinged feebly off of Shadow’s defenses, allowing him to avoid notice with only the occasional exertion.

Just before the end of the line, Shadow saw a translucent blue magical barrier of some sort covering the full width of the passage. He slipped from the cart so as not to enter it unprepared, and found a deep shadow near an outcropping of unsmoothed stone. From there, he studied the barrier. He found it was much simpler than he’d initially thought, only blocking sound.

But why would they need that all the way down here?

As best he could tell, they were directly under the mountain now. It was even possible they’d gone most, if not all, of the way through. It bothered him slightly that he couldn’t be sure. But not nearly as much as it bothered him not knowing why.

Carefully, he slipped fully through the barrier. He sent a [Shadow Clone] first, to make sure they wouldn’t be discovered or trip any senses. Then he’d simply switched places with it. He’d used that trick a few times before, since the Clones usually weren’t detected as people, and switching places with one meant he didn’t have to personally pass through the barrier.

As he crept closer to the tunnel’s end, the sounds of a sizable crowd of people talking were drowned out by a massive, echoing explosion that also shook the walls. Immediately he understood the need for the barrier that negated sound. But there was more to explore here. He couldn’t see what had caused the explosion with so many people in the way. The all-too-familiar compulsion drove him to uncover their secrets too. Since he hadn’t seen her double back, he was sure Timetwister was also down this way. Seeking mage or mystery would certainly reveal the other.

Every three minutes exactly, another explosion shook the tunnel. Shadow couldn’t help but wonder at the precision of the charges. It felt suspiciously like a cooldown, but for what? He could feel the tingling of excitement at his fingertips, as the mystery deepened. They were blasting a path into Perpetua; he was almost certain of it, but almost wasn’t good enough to satisfy a Path like his. He would get the truth!

Drawing nearer, he could start to make out what people in the crowd were saying. Timetwister was speaking to a dwarf woman that showed every indication of being the supervisor. Together they were directing fifteen others, some of whom were taking a device from the cart like the one he’d ridden in to the end of the tunnel. There, others were huddled briefly around a larger device, using it for... something. Another group was actively lengthening both cart rails while still more were loading dirt and stone into the returning carts on the newly-lengthened rails. It was quite an efficient operation, Shadow had to admit.

Then the foremost group scurried away, and a general call to attention sounded. Workers all around the tunnel braced themselves.

The expected explosion erupted right on time. Then the process seemed to begin again, as if nothing unusual had happened. Within only twenty minutes of his arrival, the tunnel had been elongated by twenty or thirty paces.

So the smaller devices are explosive charges, or something similar.

That begged the question of what they were being fed into, rather than being used on their own. Shadow couldn’t get a good look at it without revealing himself. Was it merely something to dig faster? How long did the tunnel eventually need to be? Where exactly were they going? It was clear now that their goal was somewhere within Perpetua, entering from below to avoid detection by the Sovereign as long as possible, but to what end?

A small part of Shadow’s mind wished that he hadn’t walked out on Brightside’s explanation so soon that fateful day. He wondered what plan had been communicated to those that stayed behind.

But he’d already revisited the event so many times, scanning and rescanning his own records for any hints he might have overlooked. He’d bowed out so quickly that Brightside hadn’t gotten to say much. Only:

“When you deal with the gods, my dear Timetwister, one leaves nothing to chance. One’s plans must be perfect.”

Shadow still wanted nothing to do with the gods. In his experience, nothing good ever came from messing with the divines. They were too powerful, and often cared nothing for the mortal lives they left behind. They could only be counted on to be entirely self-serving. And now that he knew one of the gods being screwed with was the Sovereign, the god responsible for Perpetua, the ‘greatest city in the world’? Yeah, he was glad to have bowed out.

Yet they’re still here, tunneling beneath his immortal life’s work.

Suddenly the world around the tunnel grew slower, dimmer, as if it wasn’t quite as real as it had been moments before. Shadow had felt this once before, and looking up, he saw that Timetwister’s edges were glowing silver, bathed in dazzling light by the enormous diamond drifting upward from her outstretched hand as it was slowly being consumed.

Tiemtwister became the axis around which the rest of the tunnel merely revolved. She was real, and the rest faded into background noise. She’d activated [True Augury], one of her most powerful, and most limited, skills. The only time he’d ever seen her use the ability before, she’d sacrificed a diamond the size of his fist, and it had put her on a year cooldown. She’d asked one question, and received one answer.

That answer had been as brutally precise as expected. It was said that [True Augury] could never actually be inaccurate, merely misinterpreted. As for what she’d asked before? Where to meet the Brightshield to guarantee that he would fall.

She had been right, then. She would be right again now. So what question did she ask this time?

As if in response, Timetwister’s voice boomed out into the muted tunnel. Her own words were loud and clear enough that no one could miss a word of her proclamation.

“We must adjust the angle twenty degrees upward, lest we miss. If you dig and blast on the cooldown, two days hence you shall breach the Vault of Perpetua.”

As the moment passed, the world struggled to catch back up to normal. Timetwister slumped, going down to one knee. “Is that all you needed?” she asked, her voice hoarse. If she said more, it was lost to the revitalizing of the workers around her.

But Shadow no longer cared about what the workers were doing. What he’d heard told more than enough. They were planning to breach the Sovereign’s Vault. Shadow had personally cataloged hundreds of stories about items even suspected to be among the countless treasures hidden somewhere in Perpetua, including whatever had helped the Sovereign ascend to godhood.

It’s a fucking heist, Shadow thought in dismay, from a gods-damned god!

And that was the burden of knowledge. It didn’t matter that he liked Timetwister or that he’d enjoyed her company during their contract. Because of who she was serving--because of what they were doing--now that he knew, he had to act.